An important Louis XVI rolltop desk attributed to Weisweiler

The rectangular top fitted with a pierced ormolu gallery, inset with grey and white marble above three doors, the frieze fitted with three drawers around a kneehole and the roll-top enclosing a green leather-lined writing-slide and simulated drawers; veneered all around with boxwood, ebony and stained wood stringing to form treillis parquetry adorned with ebony pastilles, doors and drawers outlined by ormolu beaded borders. The desk raises on four circular tapered legs inset with brass fluting.
Circa 1785

Although unstamped this piece of furniture shows all characteristics of a leading workshop. This treillis pattern on sycamore ground was used by famous cabinetmakers of the Louis XVI period. For example Riesener used it without black pastilles (Furniture supplied to the Queen Marie-Antoinette for the Tuileries palace). Our desk is more similar to the production of Weisweiler (see the famous ormolu, steel and lacquer writing table supplied to the queen in 1784 now in the Louvre). Dislike to his famous fellow-member Weisweiler sometimes mounted his works with very simple bronzes. A satinwood veneered roll-top desk illustrated in Kjellberg, Pierre, Le Mobilier français du XVIIIème siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 870, presents identical handles, and a similar upper section with doors. Many of Weisweiler’s pieces of furniture are equipped with brass mounted fluted legs. A Cabinet stamped by Weisweiler and illustrated in Alexandre Pradère, (Les Ebénistes français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, 1989, p395), seems to have been made "en suite" with our desk such similar are their components.

Provenance:
Under the marble top, the secretaire is stamped 'E.H.B.', for Edward Holmes Baldock (1777-1845), 'Purveyor of China, Earthenware and Glass to William IV' (1832-37) then 'Purveyor of China to Queen Victoria' (1838-45). Leading figure of the antiques trade, he is associated with the most important British collectors of the first part of the 19th century, including king George IV, dukes of Buccleuch and Northumberland, or William Beckford.
An iron label bears the name of the Battersea Collection (sale of the late Lady Battersea, née Constance de Rothschild, 21st February 1935 in London)