King Louis XIV used the best craftsmen to furnish his palace at Versailles. Dutch born cabinetmaker arrived in France before 1660, Alexandre-Jean Oppenordt worked on royal commissions, at first as an apprentice to Campe before being named to the prestigious position of ébéniste du roi in 1679.
Oppenordt is a contemporary of Boulle but also of Bérain who introduced in the furnishing a new style of decoration based on arabesques.
The pair of bureaux delivered by Oppenordt in 1685 for a utility room named the Petit Cabinet du Roi is the only furniture attributed with certainty to him. They are desks with eight braced feet in two groups and three columns of two drawers each, the central column being set back to move a chair forward. This model very common in the seventeenth century in France is known as Bureau Mazarin.
The piece in première partie is at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The piece in seconde partie with brass and red shell was heightened as a bureau de pente (with a tilted desktop) in the nineteenth century by a Baron de Rothschild, severing in this operation part of the Bérain style decoration but bringing an undeniable elegance of shape. This furniture is estimated € 800K for sale in Paris (Drouot) by Fraysse on November 18, lot 130. Here is the link to the auction house's website.
SOLD for € 1.3M before fees
Oppenordt is a contemporary of Boulle but also of Bérain who introduced in the furnishing a new style of decoration based on arabesques.
The pair of bureaux delivered by Oppenordt in 1685 for a utility room named the Petit Cabinet du Roi is the only furniture attributed with certainty to him. They are desks with eight braced feet in two groups and three columns of two drawers each, the central column being set back to move a chair forward. This model very common in the seventeenth century in France is known as Bureau Mazarin.
The piece in première partie is at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The piece in seconde partie with brass and red shell was heightened as a bureau de pente (with a tilted desktop) in the nineteenth century by a Baron de Rothschild, severing in this operation part of the Bérain style decoration but bringing an undeniable elegance of shape. This furniture is estimated € 800K for sale in Paris (Drouot) by Fraysse on November 18, lot 130. Here is the link to the auction house's website.
SOLD for € 1.3M before fees
1 300 000€ hors frais, préempté pour le @CVersailles ! pic.twitter.com/mFYwoYOZYB
— Alexandre Lafore (@Von_Lafore) November 18, 2015
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