LATE 18TH CENTURY, NORTH GERMAN OR RUSSIAN

Details

A NORTH EUROPEAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED AND BRASS-INLAID MAHOGANY SECRETAIRE CABINET
Late 18th Century, North German or Russian
The stepped superstructure centred by scrolling foliage and satires above two doors enclosing a fitted interior with three adjustable shelves flanked to each side a door with a circular beaded medallion with a hunter and seated woman in classical dress and a child on the left door and a bathing female with cherubs to the right door, each door enclosing further adjustable shelves, surmounted by a ribbed panel above four flaming urns with three stepped secret drawers, above a secretaire-drawer enclosing a writing surface, four small drawers and a central shelf, above two small drawers flanked by patera headed channels and on square tapering legs with ribbed mounts and terminating in sabots, partially remounted
67 in. (170.5 cm.) high; 58½ in. (148.5 cm.) wide; 31¼ in. (79.5 cm.) deep

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

This bureau relates to models by such pre-eminent northern European cabinet-makers of the neo-classical period as David Roentgen (1743-1807) of Neuwied and Christian Meyer (born c. 1750) of St. Petersburg. A bureau of similar construction attributed to Meyer can be found in the Catherine Palace, Pushkin (A. Chenevière, Russian Furniture, The Golden Age 1780-1840, London, 1988, pp. 94-95, ill. 76). Meyer, of German origin but probably born in St. Petersburg, not only supplied the Imperial Russian family and St. Petersburg aristocracy with furniture but also gave carpentry lessons to the Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine.

A closely related bureau sold, Ader-Picard-Tajan, Paris, 8 June 1990, lot 122 (FF 530,000); another bureau en secretaire, attributed to the workshop of David Roentgen, sold, Christie's Monaco, 15 December 1996, lot 172 (FF 1,692,500).

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