Bureau plat Boulle style. France, ca. 1845

Bureau plat Boulle style. France, ca. 1845.
Ebonized wood, tortoiseshell marquetry, gilded brass and bronze applications.
Measurements: 86 x 140 x 80 cm.

This majestic bureau plat follows the aesthetics of the furniture created for the court of Louis XIV by André-Charles Boulle, designs entirely decorated with magnificent marquetry and grotesques, in brass and tortoiseshell or ebony and ivory, and applied bronze elements. The craftsman of our bureau plat gives the furniture a sinuous design typical of this period by combining cabriole legs with a cut skirt waist and a top with a mixtilinear profile. It houses two drawers in the front, which are camouflaged by the design. The Boullé inspiration can also be seen in the profusion of decoration based on floral inlay and cartridges in tortoiseshell and metal developing in fine tracery on the legs as well as on the waist and top of the cabinet. The knees highlighted with gilded bronze masks are also typical of the Boulle style, as are the claw feet embellished with scrolls.

As we can see, the decoration is completely baroque, in the style of the French decorative arts of the last period of Louis XIV's reign. This is because this period was key in the development of the decorative arts of the period of Louis XVI, as designers and artists turned their eyes to the Regency style, transition from baroque (classical) to rococo (anti-classical), in search of formulas for transition from the rococo style to the new neoclassical.