ÉTIENNE LEVASSEUR (1721 - 1798)

Secretary opening by a drawer, a flap and two leaves in mahogany of Cuba veneered and solid on a frame of oak and fir. The top is made of Spanish brocatel marble, surrounded by an openwork gallery in gilded and chiseled bronze. The upper drawer, as well as the panels of the sides in suite are decorated with a very rich frieze of foliage, eagles' heads, loves and altar. The flap, lined with black Moroccan leather decorated with small irons, reveals a theater of ten drawers closed by a clever system and three compartments, the whole is decorated with a molding in chased and gilded bronze on the rails. The two lower leaves reveal three drawers with Greek handles. The theater, as well as the three drawers of the lower part, hides many secrets that are discovered by very elaborate systems. The uprights, in half-columns for the front ones and in pilaster for the back ones, are decorated with scrapers, rings, flutes and rest on spinning top feet decorated with rings and shoes in gilded and chiseled bronze. The panels of the flap and the two leaves are veneered with an extraordinary Cuban mahogany and are framed with an acanthus leaf and ovum molding in gilt and chased bronze. Stamped by Etienne Levasseur. Louis XVI period. Height : 146 cm Length : 100 cm - Depth : 45 cm In the work of Etienne Levasseur, secretaries are decorated in two ways : either with mahogany veneer or lacquer panels. One of the most sumptuous is the one preserved in the Louvre Museum and decorated with gilded bronze caryatids at the corners. We find the same system of blocking the interior drawers on a secretary attributed to Levasseur, Sotheby's sale, Monaco, June 14, 1982, n°497, repr. Finally, another secretary in mahogany veneer, stamped Levasseur, was in the former M.Bazaine collection. BIBLIOGRAPHY A. Pradère, Les ébénistes français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, Paris, 1989. D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le mobilier français du XIXe siècle, 1965 F. de Salverte, Les ébénistes du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1975 D. Alcouffe, Le mobilier du Musée du Louvre, tome I , Paris, 2001 P. Hughues, The Wallace collection, London, 1996, t.1 and 2