A French Louis XV Style Gilt Bronze Mounted Kingwood Bureau Plat after the model by Charles Cressent, Late 19th Century

This imposing writing desk is based on a model by Charles Cressent (1685-1768), the most important ébéniste working in Paris during the Régence and early Louis XV periods in the second quarter of the 18^th century. Cressent trained as a sculptor, becoming master in 1719, and his case furniture is distinguished by the richness and high quality of its gilt bronze mounts, designed and produced by Cressent himself in defiance of the strict guild regulations of the time.

Bureaux plats represented an important part of Cressent’s production, and this particular model, mounted at the angle with busts of soldiers in Roman armour, was described in contemporary records as a bureau à têtes de guerriers antiques. Three versions are known to have been made between 1740 and 1745: one from the collections of the Duc de Richelieu and now at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire; another formerly in the Viennese Rothschild collections and now in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon; and a third in the Salon Doré of the Palais de l’Elysée, Paris, where it is used by the serving French president (all three illustrated in Alexandre Pradère, Charles Cressent, Dijon 2003, p.31-135).

The latter version, which in the 19^th century was in the Ministère de la Marine, was copied by several of the leading Parisian cabinetmakers of the time including Henry Dasson, Paul Sormani, and Alfred Beurdeley (copies by the latter two illustrated in Christopher Payne, Paris Furniture: The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, 2018, p.139).