With Plaques of Sêvres China.
(In the Jones Collection, South Kensington Museum.)
WRITING TABLE.
Made by Riesener for Marie Antoinette. Collection "Mobilier National."
(From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans.)
PERIOD: LATE LOUIS XV.
There occurs in M. Williamson's valuable contribution to the literature of our subject ("Les Meubles d'Art du Mobilier National,") an interesting illustration of the gradual alterations which we are noticing as having taken place in the design of furniture. This is a small writing table, some 3ft. 6in. long, made during the reign of Louis XV., but quite in the Marie Antoinette style, the legs tapering and fluted, the frieze having in the centre a plaque of bronze doré, the subject being a group of cupids, representing the triumph of Poetry, and having on each side a scroll with a head and foliage (the only ornament characteristic of Louis Quinze style) connecting leg and frieze. It was made for the Trianon, and the date is just one year after Marie Antoinette's marriage. M. Williamson quotes verbatim the memorandum of which it was the subject:—"Memoire des ouvrages faits et livrés, par les ordres de Monsieur le Chevalier de Fontanieu, pour le garde meuble du Roy par Riesener, ébeniste a l'arsenal Paris," savoir Sept. 21, 1771; and then follows a fully detailed description of the table, with its price, which was 6,000 francs, or £240. An illustration of this table precedes this page.