AFTER THE MODEL BY DAVID ROENTGEN, BY PAUL SORMANI, PARIS, THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Details

A French ormolu-mounted tulipwood and marquetry secretaire a abattant
After the model by David Roentgen, By Paul Sormani, Paris, Third quarter 19th Century
With brèche violette marble top, with a frieze drawer below, above a fall front inlaid with ribbon-tied festoons flanked by canted angles with ribbon-tied husk pendants, the shaped sides each with two foliate-inlaid marquetry panels, the interior with gilt-tooled leather- lined writing surface, signed on the lock plate PAUL SORMANI 10 rue Charlot Paris, with a fitted interior of pigeon-holes and small drawers, with two concealed compartments, the lower part with a pair of cupboard doors, each inlaid with a foliate ribbon-tied panel, the interior with an adjustable shelf, on block feet headed by acanthus, the top of the carcass shamped SORMANI PARIS
36¾ in. (93.5cm.) wide; 59¼in. (150.5cm.) high; 16½in. (42cm.) deep

Lot Essay

This secrétaire was executed by the celebrated Parisian ébéniste Paul Sormani, whose establishment in the rue Charlot was opened in 1867. It is an extremely fine replica of a Louis XVI period secrétaire that formed part of the Piccadilly collection of John Jones (d. 1882) and was bequeathed by him to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria & Albert Museum). The secrétaire's beribboned tablet, with an exotic bird perched in a flowered medaillion, typifies the elegant marquetry introduced around 1770 at the Neuweid factory of David Roentgen (d. 1807), while its form reflects the type of desk that he advertised in 1781, following the opening of a Parisian establishment in the rue de Grenelle-Here and his election to the Paris Corporation of Master Cabinet-makers (see D. Fabian, Abraham und David Roentgen, Bad Neustadt, 1996, No. 3490).

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