Attribué au MAÎTRE AUX PAGODES (actif à Paris, entre 1725 et 1735)

FLAT DESK Paris, Regency period, circa 1730 Oak frame; veneers of violet wood and amaranth; gilt bronzes; leather H. 78 cm, W. 168 cm, D. 92 cm This flat desk with curved forms opens in the waist with three drawers and rests on four wide and curved legs. It is veneered on all sides with rhombus friezes, forming a pointed motif, arranged in reserve. The uprights are adorned with large gilded bronze falls, composed of two volutes enclosing a mask of Triton, whose bifid beard turns into the bodies of intertwined dolphins. A wide fillet of bone decorated with a row of ovals links them to the rich lion's paw hooves, embellished with oak leaves. The lateral drawers of the desk are underlined by two bronze refractories composed of acanthus leaves forming scrolls of volutes decorated with flowers and underlined by registers of pearls and pearled gadroons. A mobile handle is placed in the center of the cabinet. Each of the three drawers has a keyhole, also in gilt bronze, in the form of a scrolled cartel. On the sides are two ormolu sconces representing a female mask, probably a head of Daphne, with laurel leaves hanging from the hair gathered in braids under the chin. The rectangular top is encircled by a molded quarter round whose spandrels in the form of a three-lobed cartouche, decorated with palmettes and acanthus leaves, are adorned with a pearl day motif, all in gilded bronze. Its field, delimited by a frame formed by a wide band of purple wood chevrons placed between two fillets of amaranth of unequal widths, is covered with brown morocco, stamped around its perimeter with a motif of fleurons, gilded with petit fer. Our desk belongs to a very homogeneous group of furniture, composed almost exclusively of chests of drawers - three in tomb and three in the Regency style - and six desks, all with the same amaranth and violet wood veneers and the same repertoire of decorative bronzes. All this set was attributed by Alexandre Pradère to the Maître aux pagodes in an article published in L'Estampille- L'Objet d'art (n° 256, March 1992, p. 22-44). The production of this talented anonymous cabinetmaker corresponds to a chronological period between 1725 and 1735. Our model is stylistically the most advanced of the six inventoried desks associated with the production of the Master of the Pagodas. All of them were made in the years 1725-1730 (figs. 1-2-3-4-5). They are characterised, among other things, by the typical appearance of their belts, with the side drawers forming a slight projection and the narrower middle one, all cut out in their lower part following a basket-handle path, whose very graphic contours still preserve for two of them (fig. 1 - 2) a rather archaic character, which is not without recalling that of the desks made in the second decade of the XVIIIth Century. Whereas the design of the belt of our model is more fluid and sinuous, with rounded side drawers and an undulating middle drawer suggesting a crossbow movement, it already belongs to the Louis XV style of the 1735s. The guilloche bronze border, which delimits the compartments of the belt, is present on the five older desks of the series, but is absent on our desk. Likewise, the "portants" or bronze scalloped dragon-shaped refrains, invariably used on the drawers of the five desks, have been replaced on this desk by an element more in keeping with the stylistic orientation of the 1735's, composed of a scroll of foliage and acanthus flowers forming an openwork drop (a motif found only on a chest of drawers stamped by Jacques-Philippe Carel now in the Royal Swedish collections, inv. HGK405). Three types of falls were used on the desks: on the oldest of the series, falls with rocaille, topped by a cartel enclosed in a curved scroll (fig. 1), falls composed of a sunflower in a cartouche placed on the two scrolls (fig. 2) and finally, falls with triton faces (fig. 3-4-5) present on our desk. Another element of belonging, the diamond point veneer which covers our desk is identical to that of one of the commodes en tombeau (Paris, Palais Galliera, 15 June 1971, n° 105) and of one of the commodes à la Régence (Christie's Monaco, 1 July 1995, n° 198). The bronze sabots are in the form of leafy lion's claws (except for the pointed ones on the desk in the former Normanton collection (fig. 3)), but they all belong to the Boullian tradition. Finally, the last important element in the study of the attribution to the Master of the Pagodas is the bronze applique inspired by the works of the Master of the Pagodas.