馬修·貝佛，又稱小貝佛 「四季」黑檀木描金加彩鑲銅鎏金布勒風格玳瑁黃銅鑲嵌角櫃一對巴黎，十九世紀中

黑色大理石檯面，櫃內有一層架，鑲件拆除後可見其銅雛模之 BJ標記

丹尼斯·黎鐸·勒芭，《十九世紀法國家具》，業餘愛好者出版社；巴黎，1984年，第48-50頁

The figures allegorical of the four seasons are decorative attributes regularly used by Mathieu Béfort. It is interesting to note that the female figure holding a shaft of wheat, possibly Ceres, is identical to a mount that appears on an 18th century cabinet attributed to P-C Montigny (maître in 1766), formerly in the Arnold Seligmann Collection, and illustrated in F. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, London, 1960, p. 153, no. 236.

Mathieu Béfort (1813-1880) was the son of Jean-Baptiste Béfort, who was of Belgian origin and renowned for having supplied furniture for the apartments of the Duc d'Orléans. He was established at numbers 1 and 6 rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles in Paris from 1844 to 1880. Mathieu was a gifted ébèniste-marqueteur specializing primarily in Boulle marquetry and in particular extremely high quality work inspired by the work of André-Charles-Boulle himself. The mark BF found on the present lot is most certainly an early way of signing is creations, since the most common marks discovered on most of his oeuvre are punched stamps reading BEFORT JEUNE on the carcass, and marks BEFORT JNE or BJ as in the present pair to the reverse of some bronze mounts.