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Lot Essay
Profusely decorated with floral marquetry and containing a sliding top on elegantly cabriole legs, this table is characteristic of tables à écrire of the 1750s and 1760s inspired by the great ébéniste Jean-Francois Oeben (1721-1763).
With its marquetry depicting ribbon-tied flower sprays and a trophy of love within amaranth borders above a sliding top retaining its original lining of blue silk, this table relates to an influential corpus of shaped writing and dressing tables produced by Oeben in the late rococo style. Oeben’s production was distinguished in particular by his great skill with marquetry and his ability to incorporate elaborate mechanisms into furniture such as tables à écrire fitted with sliding tops. The marquetry table with exquisite floral marquetry panels made for Madame de Pompadour and currently preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 1982.60.61) is perhaps the apogee of this corpus. Oeben’s role as ébéniste du roi from 1754 as well as his position at the heart of the Parisian cabinet-making industry (he was brother-in-law of Roger Vandercruse (Lacroix), had trained in the workshop of André-Charles Boulle’s son Charles-Joseph (1688-1754), and Riesener and Leleu were apprentices in his workshop) and connections to the powerful marchands-merciers, meant that his distinctive production was much-emulated by other ébénistes of the period, including the maker of this table.
With its marquetry depicting ribbon-tied flower sprays and a trophy of love within amaranth borders above a sliding top retaining its original lining of blue silk, this table relates to an influential corpus of shaped writing and dressing tables produced by Oeben in the late rococo style. Oeben’s production was distinguished in particular by his great skill with marquetry and his ability to incorporate elaborate mechanisms into furniture such as tables à écrire fitted with sliding tops. The marquetry table with exquisite floral marquetry panels made for Madame de Pompadour and currently preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 1982.60.61) is perhaps the apogee of this corpus. Oeben’s role as ébéniste du roi from 1754 as well as his position at the heart of the Parisian cabinet-making industry (he was brother-in-law of Roger Vandercruse (Lacroix), had trained in the workshop of André-Charles Boulle’s son Charles-Joseph (1688-1754), and Riesener and Leleu were apprentices in his workshop) and connections to the powerful marchands-merciers, meant that his distinctive production was much-emulated by other ébénistes of the period, including the maker of this table.