A Louis XVI gilt-bronze mounted mahogany table à la tronchin by Joseph Feuerstein, circa 1780

Sotheby’s Monaco, Meubles et Objets d'Art provenant de l'Hôtel Lambert et du Château de Ferrières appartenant au Baron de Redé et au Baron Guy de Rothschild; 26th May 1975, lot 281;

By repute in the collection of Galerie Georges Hagnauer.

Philippe Jullian, Le style Louis XVI, Baschet & Cie Editeurs, 1977, p.71.

The table à tronchin – or architect’s table – was a popular furniture model in the Late Louis XVI and Directoire periods. It takes its name from the Genevan physician Théodore Tronchin whose patients included Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Voltaire and Rousseau. He advocated for a desk that could be used both sitting and standing as a way of maintaining posture and preventing bone and joint issues. The mechanisms for this desk would have been operated by inserting a crank into the apron and turning until it reached the desired height.  

Joseph Feurstein (1733-1809) was born in Brgenzerwald in Tyrol. His workshop was established on the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine where it remained until the beginning of the Revolution. He was made maître ébéniste in 1767. The gold mounts for Feurstein’s pieces were generally made by the doreur Habert.[1] This lot is typical of Feurstein’s Louis XVI style, with rigidity and simplicity of the architectural forms of antiquity.

[1] Pierre Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIIe Siècle : Dictionnaire des ébénistes et des menuisiers, Paris, les éditions de l’amateur, 1998, 307.