Small Fall-Front Desk

The shape of the carcass and the character of the decorative veneers on this desk are consistent with the work of Adrien Faizelot Delorme. In the year he attained his mastership, 1748, he married Catherine Madelaine Duval, a widow who had outlived two husbands, Albert Potié and Pierre Guérard (master 1740), both marchands ébénistes (furniture makers and dealers). She brought to the marriage a well-established workshop with an adjacent boutique in the rue du Temple. Delorme continued this business as a furniture maker and dealer himself and gained a reputation for furniture decorated with elaborate marquetry. Defining his style can be difficult, however, since he both sold the stock he inherited and made new furniture, which bears his stamp. Other unstamped pieces bear some relation to his output and may well represent furniture that he bought from other makers.
Delorme repeatedly decorated his pieces with end-grain-cut flower marquetry as well as with colorfully stained, longitudinally cut veneers (as in this example); however, this does not constitute a unique specialty or workshop style. The problem of attribution is complicated further by the absence of a stamp; therefore, any attribution can be based only on comparisons with furniture bearing Delorme's stamp. Among such pieces, six desks show particular similarities that justify the attribution of the Huntington piece to him. Although the motifs and veneers used in the floral marquetry are common to several cabinetmakers, its setting within dark purplewood borders and its employment on a desk of this particular shape are distinctive trademarks of Delorme's work.