The ''Bureau du Roi'' (, ''the King's desk''), also known as Louis XV's roll-top desk (french: Secrétaire à cylindre de Louis XV), is the richly ornamented royal

cylinder desk The cylinder desk is a desk that resembles a Bureau Mazarin or a writing table equipped with small stacked shelves in front of the user's main work surface, and a revolving cylinder part that comes down to hide and lock up the working papers whe ...

which was constructed at the end of

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...

's reign, and is now again in the Palace of Versailles.

History

The ''Bureau du Roi'' was probably started in 1760, when the commission was formally announced. Its first designer was

Jean-François Oeben Jean-François Oeben, or Johann Franz Oeben (9 October 1721 Heinsberg near Aachen – Paris 21 January 1763) was a German ébéniste (cabinetmaker) whose career was spent in Paris. He was the maternal grandfather of the painter Eugène Delacroix. ...

, the master cabinet maker of the royal arsenal. The first step in its construction was the fabrication of an extremely detailed miniature model in wax. The full scale desk was finished in 1769 by his successor,

Jean Henri Riesener Jean-Henri Riesener (german: Johann Heinrich Riesener; 4 July 1734 – 6 January 1806) was a famous German ''ébéniste'' (cabinetmaker), working in Paris, whose work exemplified the early neoclassical "Louis XVI style". Life and career Riesene ...

, who had married Oeben's widow. Made for the new ''Cabinet du Roi'' at the Palace of Versailles, it was transferred to the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

Museum in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

after the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, but has been returned to the Palace of Versailles in the 20th century where it stands again in the room where it was standing before the Revolution, i.e. the ''Cabinet intérieur du Petit Appartement'' ("Inner study of the Private Apartments"), the famous study room where kings

and

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

carried out their daily work, and where King

decided to support the American insurgents in 1777. Secret diplomatic papers were kept inside the desk’s secret drawers, whose only key the king always carried with him.

Description

The desk is covered with intricate

marquetry Marquetry (also spelled as marqueterie; from the French ''marqueter'', to variegate) is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case fur ...

of a wide variety of fine woods. In an oval reserve at the center of its 'public' side, away from the king himself, is the marquetry head of Silence, with forefinger to lips, a reminder of the discretion required in the king's business. Gilt-bronze moldings of plaques, statuettes, miniature busts and vases, even integral scrolling gilt-bronze candle stands, further adorn the surfaces of the desk. The original design was to have a miniature bust of

on top, but it was replaced by

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Rom ...

after his death in 1770. Riesener later executed a simplified second version of the Bureau du Roi for Pierre-Gaspard-Marie Grimod, comte d'Orsay; today this may be seen in the

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. His copy was the first of a number of replicas that were produced from the 1870s onwards by leading cabinetmakers in Paris, including four examples by François Linke. File:Bureau du roi, coté droit et face avant.jpg, Side view File:Mesa de Luis XV. 04.JPG, Candleholder File:Bureau du Roi, face avant droite - détail bronze et marqueterie abattant.jpg, Detail File:Bureau du Roi, coté droit détail médaillon.jpg, Detail, side File:Bureau du Roi, détail marqueterie droite de l'abattant.jpg, Marquetry medallion File:Bureau du Roi plateau supérieur et horloge.jpg, Top File:Bureau du Roi dessous n° d'inventaire.jpg, Underside

References

Bibliography

* Brunhammer, Yvonne; Monique de Fayet. ''Meubles et ensembles, époque Louis XVI''. Paris, Éditions Charles Massin, 1965. Pages 59, 60, 61, 65. * ''Grande encyclopédie illustrée des meubles''. Paris: Flammarion, 1980. Page 118. * ''Histoire du mobilier''. Paris: Editions Atlas, 1979. Pages 105, 106, 107, 144.

History

Description

References

Bibliography

See also