Jacques Dubois, matre in 1742
Half-brother of the great marchand-bniste Nel Grard, Jacques Dubois (1694-1763) worked as an ouvrier libre in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine before becoming mitre, relatively late in his life in 1742.
This exceptional bureau en pente illustrates the best of Jacques Dubois' oeuvre. His varied production is characterized by sinuous lines, rich rococo mounts and a marquetry less dense than his competitors such as BVRB. As a maker of luxury furniture, it is likely that his production was sold principally through the marchand-merciers, such as Bertin or Migeon. The inventory following his death in 1764 shows a very large stock of bronze mounts, indicating that he retained exclusive use of his own model of mounts.
This type of lavishly mounted and ornately decorated bureau remained fashionable throughout the 1750's, as is indicated by the bureau of similar character supplied by Gilles Joubert for the Cabinet de retraite du Dauphin at Bellevue as late as 1759 (discussed in J.-N. Ronfort, '1759 Bellevue et le Secrtaire du Dauphin', L'Objet d'Art L'Estampille, November-December 1994, pp.105-23). A lacquer bureau de dame, also by Dubois and with almost identical mounts, was sold by Mme. Diane de Cordoba, Sotheby's Monaco, 24 November 1972, lot 89.