An amaranth and gilt-bronze flat-design desk, with a central - Lot 353

An amaranth and gilt-bronze flat-design desk, with a central recessed drawer and a recess in the curvature joining the legs, opening to three drawers, with three simulated drawers at the back, beautifully decorated with gilt bronzes with foliate flower falls and dragons on a mound on the sides, resting on arched legs, stamped NB for Nicolas BERTHELMI (cabinetmaker received master in 1735). Attributed to Antoine Robert GAUDREAUS. (Restorations, the gilt bronze sabots brought back at a later date). Louis XV period, circa 1740. H. 76,5 L. 163 D. 78 cm Bibliography : D. Alcouffe, Antoine Robert Gaudreaus ébéniste de Louis XV, Paris, Dijon, 2021, p. 299 (the desk illustrated in the book is not explicitly attributed to Gaudreaus by the author). One of the particularities of the Crown cabinetmaker and principal supplier under Louis XV, Antoine Robert Gaudreaus, lies in the fact that he did not use stamps. This can probably be explained by the absence of any formal obligation to stamp prior to 1743, and by the fact that furniture delivered to the Crown was not considered to be destined for the market. We therefore have a very limited corpus, consisting of a few desks delivered to the furniture repository, for which Gaudreaus is the author. This weakness in sources of comparison considerably reduces the possibilities of attribution, which are in fact quite rare, which, a contrario, is likely to reinforce significant comparisons. This flat desk bears many similarities to the famous desk made and delivered by Antoine Robert Gaudreaus for the Dauphin's study at the Château de Fontainebleau in 1745, now in the Château de Versailles (D. Alcouffe, Antoine Robert Gaudreaus ébéniste de Louis XV, Paris, Dijon, 2021, p. 294-299). The common elements between the two desks lie in the architecture of the furniture and the decoration of the bronzes. Both desks feature three identical bronze models. These are the pull handles integrating the keyhole in the center, the crescent-shaped clasps lining the inner sides of the side drawers, and the particularly unusual bronze depicting a dragon on a mound that adorns each side. In terms of the cabinet's architecture, although it differs in size (163 cm vs. 147 cm), its design is identical, with the central drawer recessed. The most interesting feature, however, is the lower line of the belt, where the same sinusoidal curve is found on all four sides, as well as the same curvature at the junction with the leg. The similarity of the desk's line extends to a detail that is quite rare in the corpus of flat desks from this period, which consists of a break, a protruding recess in the junction area between the belt and the leg. This kind of pointed bulge can be seen on the amaranth flat desk by Gaudreaus delivered to the Château de Versailles in 1731 for Gaspard Moise Augustin de Fontanieu (Mobilier National, Paris). Alternatively, the archives of the Garde-meuble de la Couronne mention a five-foot (162.5 cm) amaranth desk delivered by Gaudreaus to the Palais du Louvre in 1749 (Alcouffe, op. cit. , p. 472). Insofar as the arguments in favor of an attribution to Gaudreaus seem tenable, the presence of the NB stamp should then be interpreted as a subcontract, possibly for the manufacture of the frame of this desk. However, the hypothesis that Berthelmi is the true creator of the desk cannot be ruled out, in which case the Dauphin desk would be a direct inspiration.