Decorative arts

Rolltop or cylinder desk

1 of 8

Type: Decorative arts(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1767-1770
Accession number: 27.128
Makers: Porcelain Plaques: Dominique Joffray(Opens in new tab); Desk: Jean-François Leleu(Opens in new tab) (French, 1729–1807); Porcelain plaques: Denis Leve(Opens in new tab); Porcelain Plaques: Charles-Louis Mereaud jeune(Opens in new tab) (French, 1735–1780); Porcelain plaques: Guillaume Noël(Opens in new tab) (French, 1755–1804); Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory(Opens in new tab) (French, born 1756)
Dimensions: 39 x 38 x 21 in. (99.1 x 96.5 x 53.3 cm.)
Medium: oak, walnut, and beech carcase veneered with tulipwood and marquetry of barberry, sycamore, pearwood, and maple, stained bird's-eye maple, holly, or pearwood, and stained and natural-colored boxwood, set in a ground of stained curly sycamore; secondary surfaces veneered with mahogany and purplewood; soft-paste porcelain plaques; gilt-bronze mounds; red velvet writing surface; drawer linings of watered (moire) silk and gold brocade; writing accessories of silvered bronze and glass; mechanical hardware of iron.
Credit: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. The Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art Collection.
Department: European Art
Find out more: View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)

Label text

Sèvres porcelain plaques decorate this desk. Their vivid hues once echoed the colorful marquetry, which is now faded. Though the desk exemplifies the contemporary fashion for porcelain-mounted furniture, it anticipates the neoclassical aesthetic in its iconography, visible in the marquetry (torch and quiver), porcelain (floral garlands), and gilt bronze mounts (acanthus leaves and interlaced key pattern).

Rolltop or cylinder desk

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