18th French fine desk by François Lieutaud, circa 1730

Rare writing desk in amaranth veneer and finely chiseled and mercury-gilded bronze.
It opens with three drawers on the front; two oblong drawers on the sides and a large trapezoidal recessed drawer in the center.
Each drawer has a bronze border frame; the side drawers have drop handles with laurel tori and rosettes and small keyholes with floral decoration.
The opposite side features an identical decoration that simulates three drawers.
The four delicately arched legs are adorned with bronze slippers decorated with acanthus flowers ending in small balls at the bottom and feature large female masks at the top.
These masks, positioned in spandrels, follow the curve of the leg; They are topped with palmettes and finished with a crisscrossing, openwork acanthus drop.
The crosspieces are fretted; they form "C" shapes adorned with bronze friezes of diminishing gadroons that follow the contours of the drawers and serve as a separation from the central drawer.
The middle section of the sides features a bordered frame similar to that of the drawers.
The top is covered with red leather in three parts gilded with small irons; it is framed by a large bronze ingot mold with a double corbin beak.

The interior of the drawers is oak, the frame is made of softwood fir.

Beautiful original bronze ornamentation.

Attributed to François Lieutaud, probably a subcontractor for the merchant haberdashery Noël Gérard, Paris, early in the reign of Louis XV, circa 1730-1740.

Dimensions:

Height: 76 cm; Width: 147 cm; Depth: 77 cm

Conservation Condition:

The preservation condition of our desk is excellent; the frame, veneer, backs, and drawer interiors are original.
The bronze fittings and three locks are also original.
Aside from some minor restorations to the veneer, the desk is in its complete original condition.

Our Opinion:

The desk we are presenting is attributable to the great master François Lieutaud, who was one of the great desk makers and the most prominent cabinetmaker after the death of his colleague and friend André Charles Boulle in 1719.
From this date, orders from the world's greats poured into Lieutaud, who marketed his work through the merchant Mercier Noël Gérard.
The latter operated under the name "au cabinet d'Allemagne" and supplied Lieutaud's works to the Bavarian and Saxon courts. Two desks stamped "FL" and delivered around 1725 for the great electors are still preserved in the palaces of Munich and Ansbach (Inv. No. BA M13 and Inv. No. ANSRES M49), other similar examples are today exhibited in the Arsenal Library and a copy sold in Paris (Piasa Sale June 15, 2016) and which bears the mark of the National Assembly (ASSNAT) proves to us that these desks were intended for a princely elite.
It is almost certain that these last two desks were alienated during the Revolution from the seized royal collections. Finally, a similar desk preserved at the Toledo Museum (Inv. No. 1952.61) and stamped "NG" for Noël Gérard allows us to confirm that the latter marketed his colleague's works, because the very particular assembly is identical across the entire corpus of desks, and we know that the latter was the supplier of furniture to the German courts.
The absence of a stamp on some desks may be explained by a royal privilege that exempted works reserved for the court from tax and/or by an obligation to stamp works intended for export.
The desk we are presenting uses the same assembly with this successful line by Lieutaud, where the oblong drawers and a trapezoidal recessed drawer are separated by gadrooned bronzes, and where the bronzes are similar, as are the drop handles and rosettes. Let us recall that King Louis XIV had granted Lieutaud, just like André Boulle, the privilege of casting his own bronzes.
However, our desk differs slightly from this corpus because it follows the evolution of fashion and adapts to the fluidity of the emerging Louis XV style. The women's masks are less prominent and follow the more pronounced curves of the foot, which also arches more strongly while becoming lighter in the lower part; the side rails are fretted, and from then on, the power of the Louis XIV style gradually gave way to the delicacy and lightness of the Louis XV style.
This evolution is also visible in the assembly with the appearance of oak drawer bottoms, which began to replace walnut bottoms in the 1730s and 1740s among the great masters, including François Lieutaud.
Our charming desk, with its luxurious wine-colored veneer and rich bronze ornamentation, represents the pinnacle of production from the early reign of Louis XV.
Its maker, François Lieutaud, is considered one of the greatest desk makers of the Age of Enlightenment.

François Lieutaud (1665-1748) was a cabinetmaker from Marseille who became a master in Paris at the end of the 17th century. He was the father of Charles Lieutaud, himself a cabinetmaker, and the grandfather of Balthazar Lieutaud, also a cabinetmaker best known for his craftsmanship of clock cases. Based in Paris, on Rue Traversière and later Rue Saint Nicolas, he created, alongside the renowned André Charles Boulle, some of the finest furniture at Versailles. The documents of a trial from the time indicate that, as an exception, King Louis XIV had granted him the rare privilege of being able to create and manufacture the bronzes for his furniture, because at that time, only the bronze makers' guild had this exclusivity. Part of his production is in marquetry known as "Boulle" with inlays of metal threads (brass, tin) on backgrounds of ebony, tortoiseshell or amaranth, another part is in monochrome veneer of exotic wood. His furniture is adorned with rich and original bronze ornamentation where the Boullesque imagination takes over. The fauns, women's masks, goddesses and Bacchus that he sculpts and casts himself adorn his production which consists of chests of drawers, desks, tables and cartels. Part of it is marketed by the merchant haberdashery Nöel Gérard who operates under the name "au cabinet d'Allemagne" before taking over the "magasin général" which will be the epicentre of luxury in Paris. Lieutaud will work almost until the end of his life since he delivers to the furniture repository a chest of drawers for the use of the Marquise de Pompadour at the Château de Bellevue in the years 1740-1750.