19th-Century French Louis XV Kingwood Bureau Plat With Leather Top and Bronze Mounts

Details

Description

A grand French bureau plat combining warm parquetry, an oxblood tooled-leather writing surface, five drawers, and wonderfully extravagant figural bronze … Read more A grand French bureau plat combining warm parquetry, an oxblood tooled-leather writing surface, five drawers, and wonderfully extravagant figural bronze mounts.
Description
An impressive late-19th-century French bureau plat or writing desk in the Louis XV Revival taste. The boldly shaped desk is veneered in richly figured exotic woods arranged in geometric and chevron patterns, creating lively shifts in color across the serpentine drawer fronts and curved sides.
Its expansive writing surface is inset with a deeply colored oxblood leather panel, finished with a decorative tooled border and surrounded by a molded wooden edge. Gilt-bronze corner ornaments punctuate the shaped top.
The front contains five drawers: a broad central writing drawer flanked by two stacked drawers on either side. Each side drawer is fitted with elaborate foliate bronze handles, matching escutcheons, and boldly modeled floral backplates.
Particularly striking are the figural bronze mounts applied to the four corners. Female terms or caryatids descend from shell-like corner ornaments, visually linking the shaped case to its sweeping cabriole legs. Additional acanthus-cast bronze sabots protect and embellish the feet.
With its finished sides, dramatic curves, and substantial 63-inch width, the desk can be floated prominently within a library, study, executive office, or living room. It offers precisely the combination that makes French Revival furniture so appealing: useful storage, beautiful veneer work, rich leather, and unapologetically theatrical bronze ornament.

Louis XV-Style Leather Inset Bureau Plat
DIMENSIONS
30 3/4 x 63 x 30 1/2 in. (78.1 x 160 x 77.5 cm.) See less