Provenance: A private French Collection. Kunsthandel Albrecht Neuhaus, Würzburg.

Literature: This bureau is displayed with photo in the book by Dr. Dietrich Fabian from 1996, 'Roentgenmöbel aus Neuwied', p. 283.

H. Huth, Abraham und David Roentgen und ihre Neuwieder Möbelwerkstatt, Berlin, 1928 Deutscher Verein fur Kunstwissenschaft.

P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 721, ill. E. Cyliner bureau with the same Chinoiserie scenes at the Münchner Residenz, Munich, Germany.

David Roentgen, b. 1743 in Herrnhag, probably created the 18th century's most inventive and interesting high quality furniture. He began as an apprentice at his father Abraham's workshop in Neuwied near Koblenz in Germany and ended up making furniture for royal clients e.g. Frederick the Great of Prussia, Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great. In 1768, Louis XVI of France made him Ébéniste-mécanicien du Roi et de la Reine. Later he was appointed royal cabinet-maker for Frederick William II of Prussia. After a magnificent and prosperous career, he died in Wiesbaden in 1807.

Chinoserie marquetry á la Mosaïque

The Roentgen marquetry workshop led by Johann Michael Rummer (1747–1821), continually explored new ways of refining inlay techniques,`The result was the lush painterly quality of marquetry à la mosaïque’ as Roentgen termed it. Pieces of wood were scorched in hot sand to achieve the effect of shading, and no engraving was employed, but the full design was executed as a mosaic of small pieces of wood, like an intricate jigsaw puzzle. Roentgen first mentions this technique in describing a bureau that was offered as the first prize in a lottery of the firm's furniture organized in Hamburg in 1768 and it is interesting to note that this desk was already decorated with Chinoiserie scenes. A slightly later bureau of circa 1771–72, an early form of roll-top desk made for the Margrave of Baden, demonstrates that by that time Roentgen had elaborated a highly sophisticated repertory of Chinoiserie scenes that he was to employ over and over again. They appear mainly to have been derived from engravings by the French artist Jean Pillement (1728–1803) as well as those of the Augsburg engraver Martin Engelbrecht (1684–1756). After 1775, the Chinoiserie scenes become more precise and gain a recognizably neo-classical equilibrium, as demonstrated on the present desk.