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Lot Essay
Jean-François Leleu, maître in 1764.
This elegant bureau plat, with its dense entrelac and foliate spray mounts, conveys the restrained neoclassical style for which Leleu was known and an early proponent. Although this distinctive frieze mount is apparently not recorded on other pieces, it is a lush variant on a motif found in frieze mounts utilized by Weisweiler and his contemporaries and illustrated in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p. 111.
Jean-François Leleu (1729-1807) was apprenticed alongside Jean-Henri Reisener to Jean-François Oeben. Leleu was appointed ébébniste to the Prince de Condé, supplying furniture for the Palais Bourbon, and is known to have supplied exceptional furniture to numerous members of the Court, including the Marquis de Laborde for the Château de Méreéville. Pieces from these important commissions are in the Wallace Collection, London, the Petit Trianon and the Louvre.
A more richly mounted Leleu bureau plat with a similarly complex ormolu-mounted frieze was sold from the collection of Mrs. Marella Agnelli, Sotheby's, New York, 23 October 2004, lot 134, and was formerly in the collections of the Comte de Flahaut de la Billarderie and Lansdown families, as well as Barbara Piasecka Johnson. A Leleu bureau plat with an entrelac marquetry frieze, a leitmotif of his oeuvre, was sold from the collection of a lady of title, Christie's, London, 13 June 2002, lot 250.
This elegant bureau plat, with its dense entrelac and foliate spray mounts, conveys the restrained neoclassical style for which Leleu was known and an early proponent. Although this distinctive frieze mount is apparently not recorded on other pieces, it is a lush variant on a motif found in frieze mounts utilized by Weisweiler and his contemporaries and illustrated in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p. 111.
Jean-François Leleu (1729-1807) was apprenticed alongside Jean-Henri Reisener to Jean-François Oeben. Leleu was appointed ébébniste to the Prince de Condé, supplying furniture for the Palais Bourbon, and is known to have supplied exceptional furniture to numerous members of the Court, including the Marquis de Laborde for the Château de Méreéville. Pieces from these important commissions are in the Wallace Collection, London, the Petit Trianon and the Louvre.
A more richly mounted Leleu bureau plat with a similarly complex ormolu-mounted frieze was sold from the collection of Mrs. Marella Agnelli, Sotheby's, New York, 23 October 2004, lot 134, and was formerly in the collections of the Comte de Flahaut de la Billarderie and Lansdown families, as well as Barbara Piasecka Johnson. A Leleu bureau plat with an entrelac marquetry frieze, a leitmotif of his oeuvre, was sold from the collection of a lady of title, Christie's, London, 13 June 2002, lot 250.