A rosewood and amaranth marquetry bureau plat

A flat-top desk inlaid with rosewood and amaranth, resting on four wide tapered legs adorned with laurel and floral garlands at each corner. The desk features three frieze-decorated drawers that lock with a key. The top is covered with leather and framed by a gilded bronze molding. Two pull-out writing slides extend from either side of the desk.  
In the style of Philippe Claude Montigny  
First half of the 19th century  
Customary restorations  
H. 75 x W. 145 x D. 81 cm

This flat desk of majestic proportions can be linked to the work of the cabinetmaker Philippe-Claude Montigny, who produced many neoclassical desks similar to ours.  

Philippe-Claude Montigny, the son of a privileged worker from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, became a master in 1766. In his early years, he worked on the restoration of many Boulle marquetry pieces, which were coming back into fashion. Notably, he restored the Crown's medal cabinets. However, he also became known for his 'Greek taste,' revived with the discovery of the archaeological sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii in 1738 and 1748. As Cochin argued in his "Plea to the Goldsmiths," published in 1756 after returning from a trip to Italy, the flamboyant Rococo style, with its curves and counter-curves, was beginning to tire the eye and even fall out of fashion. Critics of the Rococo style called for a return to the 'grand taste,' with straight lines and imposing forms, which had been prominent under Louis XIV. The desk of Lallive de Jully (1758), now visible at the Condé Museum in Chantilly, is today considered the manifesto of this emerging neo-Greek style, quickly embraced by an educated elite seeking renewal. As a result, we see the emergence of an ornamental vocabulary that brought back the classical style, as seen on our desk: festooned garlands, ribbons, tapered legs, and more.  

Our desk is close to one of Montigny’s desks, sold at Sotheby’s in London on July 4, 2012, under lot 22. First, we can observe the same overall structure, with the stepped arrangement between the side drawers and the central drawer. We also find the same Greek key frieze.  

The Comte de Salverte also presents, in the appendix of his “Dictionnaire des Ébénistes du XVIIIe siècle, leurs œuvres et leurs marques” (François de Nobele edition, 1962), a desk strikingly similar to ours (Plate XLIX), which came from the former collection of Baroness de Caix and later the famous Cognacq collection.