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Lot Essay
With reference to the French ébéniste Georges Jacob, who popularised the extensive use of mahogany, this type of elegant brass-mounted mahogany furniture was often described as 'Jacob Style' and enjoyed wide success in Russia. The design for this sophisticated bureau was, however, influenced by another celebrated cabinet-maker, the German David Roentgen, who as ébéniste mécanicien of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, dazzled not only the courts of Western Europe but also Catherine the Great as well as most Russian ébénistes of the late 18th and early 19th century, including Heinrich Gambs and Christian Meyer.
Around 1783 Roentgen delivered such a monumental bureau with elegant columned stand surmounted by a stepped and galleried architectural superstructure to the Prussian court in Berlin (formerly Schlossmuseum Berlin), and in 1786, an even grander bureau of similar design but with rising mechanism to the court of Catherine the Great at St. Petersburg (see D. Fabian, Roentgenmöbel aus Neuwied, Bad Neustadt, 1986, pp. 90-91, ill. 178-180).
Around 1783 Roentgen delivered such a monumental bureau with elegant columned stand surmounted by a stepped and galleried architectural superstructure to the Prussian court in Berlin (formerly Schlossmuseum Berlin), and in 1786, an even grander bureau of similar design but with rising mechanism to the court of Catherine the Great at St. Petersburg (see D. Fabian, Roentgenmöbel aus Neuwied, Bad Neustadt, 1986, pp. 90-91, ill. 178-180).