Footnotes

Provenance
Adriano Ribolzi, Monaco, where purchased 1996.

Exhibited
Adriano Ribolzi, TEFAF, Maastricht, 1996.

Jean-Francois Oeben, ébéniste du Roi (in 1754), maître ébéniste in 1760.

This elegant petit secrétaire 'à la grecque', probably conceived for a child, with its eleborate cube parquetry pattern, first evolved in the workshop of Jean-François Oeben around 1755-1760 (see F.J.B.Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, 1960, p. 68). The design, with its stylized Greek-key ormolu encadrement framing mounts clearly characterizes the nascent Neo-Classicism of the goût grec style of the late Louis XV period.

Jean-François Oeben (1721-1763) was born in Germany and must have moved to France before 1749, when he married the daughter of the ébéniste François Vandercruse, himself father of the celebrated Roger Vandercruse known as Lacroix (RVLC). Oeben was trained by the son of André-Charles Boulle from whom he rented workshop space at the Galeries du Louvre.

When the latter died, Jean-François Oeben was granted a Royal warrant on 15 December 1754, enabling him to move into the Manufacture des Gobelins, as well as receiving the title of ebéniste du Roi. At that point, he employed his younger brother Simon as a journeyman. During the same year, his name appeared in the Journal du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, having delivered a commode for the apartment of the Dauphin in Versailles. In 1756, he moved to the Arsenal when a Royal brevet granted him and his wife the life tenancy of a workshop. In 1760 he began work on the famed bureau du Roi, later completed by Jean-Henri Riesener who until then had been his principal assistant. In 1761, Oeben became a maître without requirement to pay the fees generally demanded. When he died in 1763, his widow took over his business and choose Riesener to run it, who she would eventually marry.

Oeben was both an ébéniste and a mécanicien. It is only because he enjoyed Royal protection that he was able to combine two activities that guild regulations prohibited any craftsmen from practicing at the same time. Therefore, he was able to specialize in luxurious pieces of furniture incorporating elaborate mechanisms such as tables à la Bourgogne, tables de toilette or à écrire fitted with sliding tops.

A nice feature of this petit secrétaire is the construction of the panelled back, which has three screws to the base, which when removed allows the back to slide down, should the keys ever be lost and the owner needs to access the inside.