Writing Table Known As “à La Pompadour” Stamped Léonard Boudin

Writing table called "à la Pompadour", for a lady, entirely decorated with geometric marquetry of cubes and on the top a landscape with figures and architecture in a reserve as well as on the front with mother-of-pearl inlays. The upper top is sliding, revealing a flap covered in green leather in a drawer revealing a reserve. Small discreet drawer pivoting on the side furnished with an inkwell and writing hourglass in silver metal. Ornamentation of chiseled and gilded bronzes.
Stamps (twice) of Léonard Boudin (received master in 1761) and Jurande.
France, second half of the 18th century.
Height: 72.6 cm - Width: 61 cm - Depth: 38 cm
Restoration planned.

Throughout the 18th century, furniture was developed which, in addition to a new style, also adapted to the new criteria of comfort in the rich interiors of the Kingdom of France. The architect Jacques François Blondel took stock of these social developments by describing three types of apartments, each requiring a specific type of furniture to suit their use: state apartments, reception apartments and private apartments. It was within the latter that luxurious furniture developed, including writing tables, for which the Marquise de Pompadour is credited with the role of instigator in developing the appeal of this type of furniture. This marquetry decoration, popular with the contemporaries of their directors is easily perceptible in different interpretations on writing tables bearing however different signatures which seems to demonstrate that their creators shared their knowledge with different workshops. Our piece of furniture presents twice the stamp of Léonard Boudin. Student of Pierre Migeon, the latter acquired a reputation among his peers which allowed him in addition to his activity as a cabinetmaker to open his own shop and to employ several of his colleagues in his company while continuing to affix his signature on their furniture resulting from this collaboration. Of modest dimensions, these flying pieces of furniture found their place in the intimacy of bedrooms and living rooms and discovered multiple functions while adorning themselves with an opulent decor justifying the fortune of its sponsor. Our table which we can date from the 1770s is part of the Transition period between the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI and takes up the structure. It has a heterogeneous and colorful decoration of different species combining picturesque scenes with straight lines and cubic marquetry with their vinous cartouches and volutes forming rocailles. Its animated forms demonstrate the maintenance during this decade of an attachment to the forms inherited from the Rococo while revealing the evolution of the arts for a taste "à la grec" with more severe lines. Thus the furniture bearing his stamp can reveal the work of different cabinetmakers such as the architectural decorations that can also be attributed to André Louis Gilbert. Both a renowned cabinetmaker and a skilled merchant, Boudin's production was prolific and writing tables bearing his stamp can be found in renowned museums both abroad and in France, notably at the Metropolitan Museum in New York where a writing table of the same model as ours is kept (inv. no. 69.9.4). Another example with a much more similar decoration was sold by Christie's London on November 12, 2020 (lot 24). We are relating this writing table to the one already present in our collection, attributed to RVLC and present in the portrait of Madame Pompadour, painted by François Boucher.