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Lot Essay
Mastering the use of exotic timbers to best display their aesthetic qualities, Bernard II van Risenburgh (maître in 1730, d. circa 1766) excelled in crafting the synergy of delicate and contrasting bois de bout marquetry with an audacious overall design, displayed to dazzling effect in the present lot. This elegant bureau en pente is characteristic of the oeuvre of BVRB II at the height of his career, when he supplied various members of the Royal family and their circle with marquetry and lacquer furniture. Delicate bureaux were clearly one of his specialities; an example of this form was supplied in 1745 to the apartment of the Dauphine at Versailles, through the marchand-mercier Thomas-Joachim Hebert as intermediary.
BVRB has been credited with reviving the fashion for floral marquetry decoration on furniture, a taste which had been out of favour since the Régence period. Indeed, the first deliveries of floral marquetry furniture to the Garde-Meuble were by the marchand-mercier Thomas-Joachim Hébert in 1745 for the Dauphin and the Dauphine at Versailles, and these were almost entirely by BVRB, embellished with his characteristic bois de bout marquetry of end-cut floral trails in kingwood on a bois satiné and, subsequently as in the present lot, on a tulipwood ground.
Hébert's delivery to the Garde-Meuble, dated 18 February 1745 for the Dauphine at Versailles included a bureau en pente of closely related form and decoration (A. Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Revolution, 1989, p. 192. fig. 179). Also stamped by BVRB and supplied for the cabinet de retraite de Madame la Dauphine, it is first described in the Journal du Garde-Meuble on 23 January 1745 with a description similar to the present lot:
No.1344 - Un secrétaire de bois satin fleur de placage de bois violet dans des compartiments de bois d'amarante, enrichi d'ornements, moulures, cartouches, encoignures, et pieds de bronze dor d'ormoulu. Le devant s'abat et forme une table couverte de velours bleu encastré qui se pose sur deux tirants mobiles de bois d'amarante terminés de boutons dorer. En dedans sont six tiroirs, dont deux grands et quatre petits, dans l'un desquels droite est un encrier, poudrier et une bote pongée de cuivre argent, garnis de tapis bleu et bords d'une petite tresse d'or. Long de 31 pouces sur 18 pouces de profondeur et 30 pouces de haut.
Of similar proportions, the bois-de-bout marquetry sprays within amaranth C-scroll borders of the Dauphine's bureau are extremely similar in character to the decoration of the present lot. Further related examples to the present lot by or attributed to BVRB include a bureau de dame stamped BVRB from the Seligmann and Polès Collections, sold Drouot, Montaigne, Binoche and Godeau, Paris, 6 November 1991, lot 35; a bureau en pente stamped twice BVRB previously from the collection of Martin Alexander and Segoura, sold Christie’s, New York, 19 October 2006, lot 237 and a bureau en pente attributed to BVRB from the Collection of Monsieur Rene Smadja, sold Christie's, Paris, 19 December 2007, lot 725. Other BVRB bureaux which share this characteristically sinuous shape include the particularly fine example in Japanese lacquer sold by French & Company, Christie's New York, 24 November 1998, lot 20 and another in blue lacquer illustrated A. Pradère, op. cit., p. 192 fig. 178.
BVRB has been credited with reviving the fashion for floral marquetry decoration on furniture, a taste which had been out of favour since the Régence period. Indeed, the first deliveries of floral marquetry furniture to the Garde-Meuble were by the marchand-mercier Thomas-Joachim Hébert in 1745 for the Dauphin and the Dauphine at Versailles, and these were almost entirely by BVRB, embellished with his characteristic bois de bout marquetry of end-cut floral trails in kingwood on a bois satiné and, subsequently as in the present lot, on a tulipwood ground.
Hébert's delivery to the Garde-Meuble, dated 18 February 1745 for the Dauphine at Versailles included a bureau en pente of closely related form and decoration (A. Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Revolution, 1989, p. 192. fig. 179). Also stamped by BVRB and supplied for the cabinet de retraite de Madame la Dauphine, it is first described in the Journal du Garde-Meuble on 23 January 1745 with a description similar to the present lot:
No.1344 - Un secrétaire de bois satin fleur de placage de bois violet dans des compartiments de bois d'amarante, enrichi d'ornements, moulures, cartouches, encoignures, et pieds de bronze dor d'ormoulu. Le devant s'abat et forme une table couverte de velours bleu encastré qui se pose sur deux tirants mobiles de bois d'amarante terminés de boutons dorer. En dedans sont six tiroirs, dont deux grands et quatre petits, dans l'un desquels droite est un encrier, poudrier et une bote pongée de cuivre argent, garnis de tapis bleu et bords d'une petite tresse d'or. Long de 31 pouces sur 18 pouces de profondeur et 30 pouces de haut.
Of similar proportions, the bois-de-bout marquetry sprays within amaranth C-scroll borders of the Dauphine's bureau are extremely similar in character to the decoration of the present lot. Further related examples to the present lot by or attributed to BVRB include a bureau de dame stamped BVRB from the Seligmann and Polès Collections, sold Drouot, Montaigne, Binoche and Godeau, Paris, 6 November 1991, lot 35; a bureau en pente stamped twice BVRB previously from the collection of Martin Alexander and Segoura, sold Christie’s, New York, 19 October 2006, lot 237 and a bureau en pente attributed to BVRB from the Collection of Monsieur Rene Smadja, sold Christie's, Paris, 19 December 2007, lot 725. Other BVRB bureaux which share this characteristically sinuous shape include the particularly fine example in Japanese lacquer sold by French & Company, Christie's New York, 24 November 1998, lot 20 and another in blue lacquer illustrated A. Pradère, op. cit., p. 192 fig. 178.