Roll-top Desk (Bureau à cylindre), c. 1775/1785

West Building, Ground Floor — Gallery G11

Medium

veneered on oak principally with tulipwood and purplewood, with ebony (or wood stained to resemble ebony) and boxwood for stringing; gilded bronze mounts

Dimensions

overall: 121.3 x 128.2 x 78.2 cm (47 3/4 x 50 1/2 x 30 13/16 in.)
overall (depth of table top): 34.8 cm (13 11/16 in.)
overall (height to table top): 76.2 cm (30 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.410

Artists / Makers

Jean-Henri Riesener (artist) French, born Germany, 1734 - 1806

Image Use

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Provenance

Dr. Arthur Maude, Westerham, Kent. (Duveen Brothers, Inc., New York); sold 9 December 1915 to Peter A.B. Widener; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

Associated Names

Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1973: François Boucher in North American Collections: One Hundred Drawings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago, 1973-1974, not in catalogue or brochure (shown only in Washington).

2002: Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art; The Frick Collection, New York, 2002-2003, not in cat. (shown only in Washington).

Bibliography

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 18.

2020: Jacobsen, Helen, Rufus Bird, and Mia Jackson, eds. Jean-Henri Riesener: Cabinetmaker to Louis XVI & Marie-Antoinette: Furniture in the Wallace Collection, the Royal Collection & Waddesdon Manor. London, 2020: 84, 88, fig. 76, 268 n. 311.