Writing desk or bonheur du jour, veneered in mahogany on pine, with porcelain plaques and gilt brass mounts, the upper section with rounded corners.

Writing desk or bonheur du jour, veneered in mahogany on pine, with porcelain plaques and gilt brass mounts, the upper section with rounded corners.
The piece is made of solid mahogany and mahogany veneered on softwood. The form is of a small table with a single drawer in the frieze, above which is set a superstructure comprising a central cupboard above a shallow drawer (both bearing porcelain plaques), flanked by quarter-round sections, the lowest tier mounted in porcelain with two open, galleried sections above. The upper part is articulated with two detached, fluted columns flanking the cupoard, with bases and collars in gilt brass. The cupboard is lined with mahogany, with a single shelf showing a shaped front edge. The back edges of the upper section are fluted and the flutes lines with brass.
The legs, above tall turned feet with collars of gilt brass, are square-sectioned and tapering, the visible surfaces inlaid with panels of another wood (possibly bois satiné), outlined with stringing of ebony and boxwood. The legs are joined by a rising, stepped x-stretcher, supporting a a tray of grey Bardiglietto marble, framed in gilt-brass, with a pierced, trellised gallery on the sides and back.
The back of the desk is undecorated. The pine is stained dark. It shows a number of horizontal cracks along the grain of the wood, and some of these have been repaired with butterfly insets. The drawers are lined with oak.
Porcelain
The porcelain plaques are painted with flowers and show a narror gilded surround of bead and elongated lozenge shape. They lack the coloured borders (blue, pink or green) that would have been standard on eighteenth-century Sèvres plaques made specifically for furniture and it is likely that they have been re-cycled from earlier tablewares or trays.
Brass mounts
It has not been determined whether these are of lacquered or gilded brass. The plain mouldings, the closely matted grounds and the beaded edges are typical of the 1780s, as are the laurel mounts in the spandrels around the circular plaque and the keyhole escutcheon of the large drawer, which shows a shield-shape flanked by crossed laurels and other crossed branches. It is not likely that any of these date from the eighteenth century.

Bequeathed by John Jones

In the collection of John Jones before 1882.

The mount on the drawer of the table section is identical to one on the writing table 1090-1882, which is also thought to date from the nineteenth century and this may suggest that the two pieces were made in the same workshop.

Acquired as late 18th-century French, but now believed to have been made in Paris or London in the middle of the 19th century

This small desk, known in French as a bonheur du jour, was a star piece in the collection of John Jones, who bequeathed his collection of French eighteenth-century decorative arts to the Museum in 1882. It was attributed to the great royal cabinet-maker, Jean-Henri Riesener. However, within a few years, curators were beginning to cast doubt on its date. It is one of a group of desks of exactly the same form, all of which are now thought to have been made in Paris in about 1860. At that time, French furniture from the reign of Louis XVI (1774-1792) was at the height of fashion, and many copies and versions of the 18th-century designs were made. Furniture with porcelain mounts was particularly valued by collectors. The plaques on this piece loosely follow the design of porcelain plaques made by the Sèvres porcelain factory during the 1770s and 1780s.

1078-1882