An impressive French gilt bronze mounted brass and tortoiseshell inlaid ebonized bureau plat, Befort Père mark, 19th C.

H 80,5 - L 144,5 - D 69 cm

Top with a leather writing surface and a glass for protection of the surface.

Jean-Baptiste Béfort (1783-1840), who was of Belgian origin but lived in Paris (Faubourg St. Honoré), is renowned for having supplied furniture for the apartments of the Duc d'Orléans. He is the father of Mathieu Béfort (1813-1880) known as Béfort Jeune, who always stamped his work ‘Béfort Jeune,’ or had the reverse of his bronze mounts stamped BJ.

Ref.:

- The design of this impressive bureau plat is is based upon a series of celebrated bureaux plats produced circa 1715-20 in the workshop of the most celebrated French master ébéniste of the Louis XIV period, André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), such as the Bureau du président de Machault. Comparable desks are in the Wallace Collection in London, the Getty Museum in California, the Frick Collection in New York, and the celebrated model commissioned for the Duc de Bourbon (link en link), now in the collection of the Château de Versailles (link).

- A boulle coffre de marriage by Jean-Baptiste Béfort, was sold at Christie's, London, 27 September 2007, lot 96 (link).

- A quite similar bureau plat and attributed to Hippolyte Edme Pretot (1812-1855) or Mathieu Béfort (1813-1880) was sold at Bonhams, London, 18 November 2015, lot 24 (link).