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Lot Essay
With its Etruscan design elements, including lavishly guilloche-mounted legs and laurel-mounted drawers, this bureau plat is derived from a series of bureaux plats by Pierre Garnier (d. 1800). Notable among these is one in the collection of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat House, Wiltshire, said to once have been the property of Napoleon's Great Chamberlain Talleyrand (C. Packer, Paris Furniture, 1956, illus. 82). Related models executed in the Grecian manner by Garnier in the 1760's include a desk with cartonnier, supplied to the Maréchal duc de Biron, now in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (A. Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, Paris, 1989, p. 248, fig. 255), and an example acquired by Henry Huntington in 1911 in the Huntington Collection, Pasadena (illustrated in S. de Ricci, Louis XVI Furniture, p. 114).
Recognized as one of the innovators of Neoclassicism, the marchand-ébéniste Pierre Garnier, maître in 1742, exhibited a neoclassical piece of furniture, after a design by the architect Charles de Wailly, in the Salon of 1761. Among his clients were the pioneering tastemakers Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, the duchesse du Mazarin, Germaine Baron, and, most importantly, the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour and a key proponent of the emerging style.
Beurdeley was pre-eminent among Parisian ébénistes for producing articles of the highest quality. The firm was particularly known for their refined ormolu, which was considered the best in the city. The quality of Beurdeley's work was so good that in 1886 Alfred Champeaux remarked that some of their pieces 'ont été vendu comme des pièces anciennes' (P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés du XVIIIième Siècle, Paris, 1987, pp. 337 - 339). Using only the most magnificent of models, predominantly Louis XVI, and taking as reference articles from the Garde Meuble National, Beurdeley exhibited at the major International Exhibitions, including Paris in 1878 and 1889 and Amsterdam in 1883.
Alfred Emmanuel-Louis Beurdeley (d. 1919) was the grandson of Empire furniture restorer and producer Jean Beurdeley (d. 1853), and the son of the celebrated ébéniste Louis-August-Alfred Beurdeley (d. 1882). When Alfred Beurdeley took over control of his father's successful firm in 1875, the shop was located at the Pavillon de Hanovre, with workshops at 20 and 24 rue Dautancourt. The business ceased trading in 1895, and between that year and 1901, no less than fifteen sales of Beurdeley's remaining stock were held, mostly conducted by Galerie Georges Petit.
Recognized as one of the innovators of Neoclassicism, the marchand-ébéniste Pierre Garnier, maître in 1742, exhibited a neoclassical piece of furniture, after a design by the architect Charles de Wailly, in the Salon of 1761. Among his clients were the pioneering tastemakers Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, the duchesse du Mazarin, Germaine Baron, and, most importantly, the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour and a key proponent of the emerging style.
Beurdeley was pre-eminent among Parisian ébénistes for producing articles of the highest quality. The firm was particularly known for their refined ormolu, which was considered the best in the city. The quality of Beurdeley's work was so good that in 1886 Alfred Champeaux remarked that some of their pieces 'ont été vendu comme des pièces anciennes' (P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés du XVIIIième Siècle, Paris, 1987, pp. 337 - 339). Using only the most magnificent of models, predominantly Louis XVI, and taking as reference articles from the Garde Meuble National, Beurdeley exhibited at the major International Exhibitions, including Paris in 1878 and 1889 and Amsterdam in 1883.
Alfred Emmanuel-Louis Beurdeley (d. 1919) was the grandson of Empire furniture restorer and producer Jean Beurdeley (d. 1853), and the son of the celebrated ébéniste Louis-August-Alfred Beurdeley (d. 1882). When Alfred Beurdeley took over control of his father's successful firm in 1875, the shop was located at the Pavillon de Hanovre, with workshops at 20 and 24 rue Dautancourt. The business ceased trading in 1895, and between that year and 1901, no less than fifteen sales of Beurdeley's remaining stock were held, mostly conducted by Galerie Georges Petit.