Images(7)

Rolltop or cylinder desk

Maker Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (French, active from 1756 to the present)

MakerPorcelain Plaques: Charles-Louis Mereaud jeune , (c. 1735-1780, active 1735-1780) (French, ca. 1735 - 1780, active 1756 - 1780)

MakerPorcelain plaques: Guillaume Noël , (1735-1735 to 1804, active 1755-1804) (French, active 1755 - 1804)

Additional Title(s)

Bureau à cylindre

ClassificationsDECORATIVE ARTS

Date1767-1770

Mediumoak, walnut, and beech carcase veneered with tulipwood and marquetry of barberry, sycamore, pearwood, and maple, stained bird's-eye maple, holly, or pearwood, and stained and natural-colored boxwood, set in a ground of stained curly sycamore; secondary surfaces veneered with mahogany and purplewood; soft-paste porcelain plaques; gilt-bronze mounds; red velvet writing surface; drawer linings of watered (moire) silk and gold brocade; writing accessories of silvered bronze and glass; mechanical hardware of iron.

Dimensions39 x 38 x 21 in. (99.1 x 96.5 x 53.3 cm.)

MarkingsMarks on the woodwork: Stamped inside, at the back of the writing shelf, J.F. LELEU and JME. A paper tariff label issued at Saint-Lazare Station in Paris is pasted onto the underside of the center bottom board. A paper label, pasted on the underside of the proper left bottom board is inked, N°.17. Marks on the twenty-six porcelain plaques: Of the twenty plaques removed for examination, all but three are marked on their backs with the crossed L's of the Sèvres Manufactory, and fifteen of the plaques are also marked with the date letter, o. Two plaques bear Levé's mark, the letter L; six plaques bear Méreaud's mark, a comma; four plaques bear Noël's mark, __ ; two plaques bear Joffroy's mark, the letter p.

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. The Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art Collection.

Label TextSèvres porcelain plaques decorate this desk. Their vivid hues once echoed the colorful marquetry, which is now faded. Though the desk exemplifies the contemporary fashion for porcelain-mounted furniture, it anticipates the neoclassical aesthetic in its iconography, visible in the marquetry (torch and quiver), porcelain (floral garlands), and gilt bronze mounts (acanthus leaves and interlaced key pattern).

Status

On view

Object number27.128