Footnotes

Provenance
Salomon Stodel, Amsterdam.

Literature
Pierre Devinoy, Guillaume Janneau, Le Meuble Léger en France, Paris, 1952, n0. 164 and 165, illustrated.

Related literature
Daniel Meyer, Le Mobilier de Versailles XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles, Dijon, 2002, no.18, pp.74-5 and no.63, pp.244-5.
Pierre Verlet, Le Mobilier Royal Français, 1990.
M.Isabel Pereira Coutinho, 18th Century French Furniture, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon 1999, no.23, pp.222-7.
R.J.Baarsen, Paris, 1650-1900, Decorative Arts in the Rijksmuseum, no.99, pp.408-411.
Alexandre Pradere, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, 1989, fig.451, p.374 and fig.462, p.381.


Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806), ébéniste du Roi, maître in 1768.

Riesener, Ébéniste Favoori de la Reine

Of German origin, Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806) entered the atelier of Jean-François Oeben and became his successor after marrying Oeben's widow, née Van der Cruse, and taking over the workshop of the ébéniste du roi at the Arsenal. Maître in 1768, Riesener became ébéniste ordinaire du Mobilier de la Couronne in 1774, and between 1774 and 1784 supplied the Court with furniture worth more than a million livres, excluding deliveries to the private Gardes-Meubles of Marie-Antoinette, the Comte de Provence, the Comte d'Artois, Mesdames and the other princes. Rieseners' supremacy was ultimately only halted by a combination of the arrival of Thierry de Ville d'Avray as Directeur du Garde-Meuble in 1784 and the rising success of David Roentgen.

This magnificent marquetry and parquetry table à écrire - coiffeuse is characteristic of the oeuvre of the celebrated ébéniste. It belongs to a small group of tables of similar scale and related inlays, between the table à écrire and the coiffeuse, yet serving both purposes. Most of Riesener's elaborate and luxurious production 'd'apparat' was delivered to members of the French Royal family, compared to the more day-to-day plainer mahogany furniture.

This table à écrire, toilette de campagne, or more commonly called coiffeuse, is stylistically related to a commode in the Salon des Nobles of the Comtesse d'Artois at Versailles. The commode in question has a central medallion inlaid with a strikingly similar floral bouquet in a basket to the motif inlaid on the undertier of our coiffeuse. That commode was delivered to the Comtesse d'Artois six years after her marriage to Louis XV grandson, and was described to be of a 'new style'. Listed under the n.3014 of the 'Journal du Garde-meuble' it is described as having a 'médaillon à corbeille de fleurs suspendue plaquée sur fond d'amarante...'. It is conceivable that our coiffeuse was executed at the same time of the commode.

The floral marquetry top in a flowerhead-filled trellis ground in the present lot corresponds closely to that of the writing table from the private apartments of Marie-Antoinette at Marly, formerly in the Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg, and now in the Gulbenkian Collection (see M.Isabel Pereira Coutinho, 18th Century French Furniture, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, 1999, n.23, pp.222-7). A similarly inlaid top also features on Riesener's table du Boudoir de la Méridienne at Versailles, delivered in 1782 and with jewel like chiselled ormolu mounts by the bronzier Rémond, now conserved at Waddesdon Manor.

And finally it is interesting to compare the relatively similar decorative features of a Riesener bonheur-du-jour featuring similar flowerhead-filled trellis ground and floral spray panels now conserved in the Rijksmuseum. The bonheur-du-jour is equally mounted with almost identical raised panelled ormolu mat and burnished chutes (BK 16667).