@ Mazarin-shaped eight-legged desk in marquetry on an ebony base, the front opening to seven drawers and a window, decorated on the front and sides with a vase of flowers on an entablature, flanked by profiles of Minerva in a frame of foliage and flowers, grasshopper, butterfly, waders, birds, griffins, mantling and masks, the eight-legged base in a sheath ending in spheres and joined four by four by braces
Attributed to Renaud Gaudron
Louis XIV period, circa 1685-1690
H. 79 cm - W. 116 cm - D. 69 cm PFD
Small accidents and restorations
Bibliographical references :
C. Demetrescu, " Les Gaudron, ébénistes du temps de Louis XIV ", Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français, 2000, p.33-61.
C. Demetrescu, Les ébénistes de la Couronne sous le règne de Louis XIV, Lausanne, 2021.
On November 10, 1688, the Garde-meuble de la Couronne received the delivery of two desks for the apartments of Madame de Maintenon at the Palace of Versailles. Calin Demetrescu in his reference work, Les ébénistes de la Couronne sous le règne de Louis XIV, Lausanne, 2021, p.178-179, retranscribes the mention of the Journal du Garde-meuble de la Couronne as follows: "of marquetry of wood with flowers of report having each one seven drawers and a cupboard in the medium closing with key, whose entries of the locks are of gilded bronze, above is represented a vase full of flowers pozé on a table of waiting with oyseaux and butterflies, carry by eight pillars in term with gilded bazes and bolles".
This delivery belongs to an important group of furniture delivered by Renaud Gaudron (probably with the collaboration of his brother Nicolas) from 1684, date at which he obtained a quasi-monopoly of the supplies of cabinet making at the Garde-meuble de la Couronne.
The piece of furniture presented, as well as this description, correspond to a relatively precise decorative typology nowadays invariably attributed to Renaud Gaudron (born around 1653, cabinetmaker received master before 1784 and died in 1727). If several workshops were famous at the same time in the field of marquetry of wood of report, one associates today directly with Gaudron a certain figurative exuberance associated with the reasons of broad acanthus leaves, entablatures and vases of flowers. This abundance of details is however condensed around a recurrent syntax composed of leafy mascarons, grotesque profiles, birds and butterflies. Later, at the very end of the 17th century, other figures probably appeared to complete the previous ones; these include sphinxes, which are then associated with the usual repertoire of the cabinetmaker.
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