BY LOUIS MAJORELLE, NANCY, CIRCA 1880/90

When offered at auction in 1986 and 1995 this bureau à gradin was not identified as the work of Louis Majorelle (1859-1926). However a firm attribution can be made with the discovery of an incised ‘LM’ mark to the gilt-bronze mounts and with reference to another bureau of the same model stamped 'L. MAJORELLE' to the carcass, decorated with vernis Martin lacquer instead of Japanese lacquer. For the vernis Martin lacquer decorated desk see C. Payne, Paris Furniture: The luxury market of the 19th century, Paris, 2018, p. 459.
Louis Majorelle (d. 1926) is best known today as one of the leading exponents of the Art Nouveau style. The son of a cabinetmaker, Majorelle initially trained as a painter at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Jean-François Millet. After his father Auguste died in 1879, Majorelle returned to Nancy and took over management of the family workshop and immediately began to hone his skills as a furniture designer. This desk shows his father’s influence in the use of Japanese lacquer, which he had favoured for pieces he had made during the 1870s. Like his contemporaries, François Linke and Emmanuel Zwiener, Majorelle initially produced finely made furniture inspired by 18th-century models. By the late 1880s, like Léon Messagé's designs for Linke and Zwiener, Majorelle’s Rococo revival furniture shows the influence of the emerging Art Nouveau style.
In 1883, Majorelle participated in the Amsterdam international exhibition attracting the attention of the Dutch court resulting in two highly important commissions from the royal family comprising predominantly Louis XV style giltwood, ormolu-mounted and vernis Martin decorated furniture supplied from 1886 to the Lange Voorhout and Royal Het Loo Palaces in the Hague. By the 1880s, Majorelle began to experiment with naturalistic interpretations reminiscent of the Art Nouveau style as evident in the exaggerated bombé shape of this desk, and in the exuberant forms of the ormolu mounts and candelabra.
Around 1894 Majorelle was influenced by the Nancy glass and cabinetmaker Émile Gallé and abandoned altogether the revival styles, becoming the leading exponent of Art Nouveau furniture, winning the chevalier de la Légion d’honneur at the 1900 Paris Exposition universelle and making epoque-defining furniture of superb quality. The present bureau à gradin is a magnificent piece of furniture in itself, and also a fascinating milestone on Majorelle’s path to creating definitive Art Nouveau furniture.