.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This bureau plat, with richly scrolling marquetry and central frieze mounts in the form of the weeping Heraclitus, 'le philosophe qui pleure', is inspired by a group which can confidently be attributed to André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732).
A design for a closely related example is in the Musie des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. It is probably from a large portfolio that Boulle would have shown to prospective clients to demonstrate the various models he could produce. The Heraclitus and Democritus masks appear on several of the bureaux plats in this group and were certainly a product of Boulle's workshop as an inventory taken after his death in 1732 included :
une boite contenant les masques d'Heraclite et de Democrite
de diffirentes grandeaurs ciselis pesant ensemble
18 livres
Period examples by Boulle include that in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, illustrated in T. Murdoch, ed., Boughton House, The English Versailles, London, 1992, pp. 121-122, fig. 113.
The production of bureaux plats was obviously an important part of the output of Boulle's workshop as a list of the items destroyed in the disastrous fire of 1720 included:
cinq bureaux de cinq ' six pieds de long de marqueterie d'écaille de tortue et de cuivre, et deux de bois de couleur très avancés.
Although the earliest recorded example in an inventory is that of the marchand Paul Verani in 1713, the form was introduced much earlier as a bureau plat similar appears in a portrait in the Louvre dated 1702 by Hyacinthe Rigaud of Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet.
A design for a closely related example is in the Musie des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. It is probably from a large portfolio that Boulle would have shown to prospective clients to demonstrate the various models he could produce. The Heraclitus and Democritus masks appear on several of the bureaux plats in this group and were certainly a product of Boulle's workshop as an inventory taken after his death in 1732 included :
une boite contenant les masques d'Heraclite et de Democrite
de diffirentes grandeaurs ciselis pesant ensemble
18 livres
Period examples by Boulle include that in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, illustrated in T. Murdoch, ed., Boughton House, The English Versailles, London, 1992, pp. 121-122, fig. 113.
The production of bureaux plats was obviously an important part of the output of Boulle's workshop as a list of the items destroyed in the disastrous fire of 1720 included:
cinq bureaux de cinq ' six pieds de long de marqueterie d'écaille de tortue et de cuivre, et deux de bois de couleur très avancés.
Although the earliest recorded example in an inventory is that of the marchand Paul Verani in 1713, the form was introduced much earlier as a bureau plat similar appears in a portrait in the Louvre dated 1702 by Hyacinthe Rigaud of Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet.