拍品专文
David Roentgen, ébéniste mécanicien to Louis XVI, maître in 1780
With its pearl-strung tablets, lozenged and Egyptian-striated compartment, fluted herm legs and Palmyreen-sunflower paterae, this galleried writing-table typifies the neo-classical style promoted by David Roentgen (d. 1807), cabinet-maker of Neuwied-am-Rhine and Ebéniste Mécanicien to Louis XVI. Elected maître ébéniste in 1780, he established his atelier in the Saint-Honoré district and specialised in restrained neo-classical mahogany furniture mounted à la Grecque. A writing-table of this form, featuring an additional writing-slide in place of a frieze-drawer, was formerly in the Berlin Schlossmuseum (illustrated in Josef Maria Greber, Abraham und David Roentgen, Starnberg, 1980, vol. I, p. 230 and vol. II, p. 309, figs. 609 and 610), while a further example, incorporating a fitted frieze drawer, is listed at Furstenbau Veste Coburg (ibid., vol. II, figs. 611 and 612). Various related features can also be found on documented Roentgen pieces, such as the music-desk in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm signed 'Roentgen Neuwied' (ibid., figs. 652-55), the Egypitan obelisk longcase-clock in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, signed jointly by Messrs. Roentgen and Kinzing, and a commode, with medallioned rather than lozenged compartment, supplied to Fürst Friedrich Wilhelm zu Weid (ibid., figs. 573 and 574)
With its pearl-strung tablets, lozenged and Egyptian-striated compartment, fluted herm legs and Palmyreen-sunflower paterae, this galleried writing-table typifies the neo-classical style promoted by David Roentgen (d. 1807), cabinet-maker of Neuwied-am-Rhine and Ebéniste Mécanicien to Louis XVI. Elected maître ébéniste in 1780, he established his atelier in the Saint-Honoré district and specialised in restrained neo-classical mahogany furniture mounted à la Grecque. A writing-table of this form, featuring an additional writing-slide in place of a frieze-drawer, was formerly in the Berlin Schlossmuseum (illustrated in Josef Maria Greber, Abraham und David Roentgen, Starnberg, 1980, vol. I, p. 230 and vol. II, p. 309, figs. 609 and 610), while a further example, incorporating a fitted frieze drawer, is listed at Furstenbau Veste Coburg (ibid., vol. II, figs. 611 and 612). Various related features can also be found on documented Roentgen pieces, such as the music-desk in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm signed 'Roentgen Neuwied' (ibid., figs. 652-55), the Egypitan obelisk longcase-clock in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, signed jointly by Messrs. Roentgen and Kinzing, and a commode, with medallioned rather than lozenged compartment, supplied to Fürst Friedrich Wilhelm zu Weid (ibid., figs. 573 and 574)