A French serre papiers, circa 1810. Carlton Hobbs LLC

The letterbox, or serre-papiers (“filing cabinet” or, from the old French, “to store” or “to gather”), was devised to sit on great writing tables to house important papers.  Like the knife boxes and cellarettes of a dining room, letterboxes were designed as independent, moveable pieces of furniture for the study, and they, likewise, evolved to take on more imaginative forms. The present letterbox takes the shape of a peltarion, or pelta, shield. These modified crescent-shaped bucklers were used prior to the 3rd century BC by ancient soldiers including the Peltasts, a type of light infantry in ancient Greece whose title derives from the shield. In figure 1, a Roman wall fresco in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, depicts an amazon warrior holding her shield. The pelta shape has been used as a decorative motif from ancient Roman floor mosaics to Renaissance pietre dura designs, such as that on the famed Farnese Table in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It continued into the 18th and 19th centuries, where it was used in the decoration of neoclassical interiors. Figure 1: Warrior depicted holding a pelta shield in a fresco. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. A similarly shaped serre-papiers, illustrated in Serge Grandjean’s Empire Furniture, is attributed to M.G. Biennais of Paris, circa 1810.  This letter cabinet, now in the Musée National du Château de Malmaison, also takes the form of a pelta shield and bears the arms of Empress Josephine (figure 2). Figure 2: A similar mahogany and gilt-bronze serre-papiers by G.M. Biennais, now in the Musée National du Château de Malmaison. Another pelta-shaped letterbox from Naples, circa 1810/1815, whose “model is of French origin,” 1 was previously in the Royal Palace of Caserta and of Naples. It is illustrated in Alvar González-Palacios’ I Mobili Italiani, p.92 (Milano: BNL edizioni, 1996).   The serre papiers, open. Carlton Hobbs LLC.

Of tempera on canvas. Each panel depicting a vignette from the tale of Zemire et Azor showing elegant ladies and gentlemen in period costume variously swooning and indicating horror at the sight of the beastly Azor. All set within a painted faux gilt frame.

French In The English Manner. Circa 1810. Of mahogany and gilt brass. Each of tub-back form, the shaped top rail carved with two rosettes, the upholstered back flanked by two downswept arms, each terminating in a scroll centred by a rosette, the seat resting above a frieze panelled to the front and flanked with two carved rosettes, the whole raised on four sabre legs, the front pair panelled, each leg terminating in a gilt brass lotus leaf foot raised on a castor.

French. Circa 1940. Of nickel plated tubular steel and rosewood. The oval back flanked by the curved arms above the circular seat. The whole raised on four tapering outswept legs.

Of patinated bronze and alabaster. The six arms, each shaped as a pair of facing cobras, their bodies intertwined around a bronze ring and supporting an alabaster shade, the snakes curving upwards towards the centre and terminating into stylised acanthus leaves of dark green patinated bronze.

The lamps with central flaming sun flanked above by rising scarab wings in green and blue.

Of ebonised wood with gilt bronze mounts. The rectangular top inset with a leather panel and encased with a gilt bronze moulded edge, the panelled frieze fitted with three drawers to the front, each edged with gilt bronze moulding and centred by a cartouche key-escutcheon and foliate drop handle, the frieze fully dummied to the reverse. The whole raised on four circular, tapering and fluted legs, each leg headed by an acanthine capital, the flutes with bronze festoon mounts, each leg terminating in acanthine decoration and a toupie foot.

French. Circa 1925. The present table bears a number of characteristics typical of the work of Clément Mère. The use of patinated leather to decorative effect, often incorporating stylised floral patterns, together with the employment faux shagreen engraved ivory decoration can be seen in many of Mère's pieces. The present table also demonstrates Mère's adherence to more traditional classical forms of French furniture. Mère was born in Bayonne in 1870 and began his career as a Salon painter. Mère began designing furniture in the 1910s, and the refinement of his designs and his use of Egyptian motifs was an important part of the evolution of the Art Deco style in France. By 1924 it was clear that Mère was a highly regarded Parisian cabinet-maker. He produced a cabinet for Lord Rothermere and was commissioned to design a desk for Robert de Rothschild, now part of the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

French. Circa 1805. This highly unusual and beautifully crafted table is set with medals by the celebrated French medallist, engraver and illustrator Bertrand Andrieu (1761-1822). The medals, which are mounted to the centre of the concave panels of the base of the table are double sized examples of a medal issued in 1801 that served as a prize medal for the Exhibition of French Industrial Products held in Paris in 1801-2. The table on which the medals are mounted appears to be unique in its design, with an octagonal top above a four-sided concave panelled base, one side of which is a door opening to create a cabinet within the base. The bronze feet, which are modelled in the form of winged lion monopodia are also unusual in that the balls on which the the monopodia are raised are ingeniously designed, each intergrating a castor without disturbing the perfect sphere of the brass ball.

The signature of Franz Kientz appears on the reverse of one of these extraordinary pictures, which combine intricate marquetry with painted skies and water effects. The only other known example of this type of work is an elevated view of Schloss Mannheim, almost certainly by the same artist, which is in the collection of Mannheim Museum. It shares the present pictures' distinctively painted sky, and is peopled with the same characteristic tiny painted figures. A further distinctive feature of Kientz's intarsia is his use of various woods to create the illusion of texture, particularly in his representation of gardens: tight maple burs represent the graveled paths, and a veneer with a meandering grain is used to depict water. The views of Schloss Nymphenburg and Schloss Schleissheim are from a series of engravings of gardens and houses by the German garden designer Matthias Diesel (d. 1752), who brought the French style of garden to Germany's palaces, after his visit to France.

French. Circa 1775. This rare and highly unusual secretaire de voyage by the celebrated ébéniste Pierre Garnier (1725-1800; received maître in 1742), whose stamp it bears, seems likely to have been made for Jean Chevalier de Selve, Seigner d’Andeville, Captain of Cavalry in the Harcourt Regiment and Knight of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, as it bears a brass inlaid monogram with the intertwined initials: JCS. The secretaire is a highly sophisticated piece of portable furniture, with the interior fitted with a number of drawers set with ivory tablets and the stands folding away beneath the cabinet, where they are secured by a metal fastening. Garnier was one of the very first ébénistes to introduce the motifs and principles of neoclassicism into furniture design, favoring strongly geometric architectural forms which accentuated straight lines and sharp corners.

English. First Quarter Of The Nineteenth Century. The present cabinet is a superb example of the early 19th century taste in England for French-inspired furniture of the ancien régime. Led by George IV, the fashion quickly spread through the ranks of the British aristocracy and patrons from the very wealthy merchant class such as William Beckford and George Watson Taylor. Although the low-slung breakfront form of the piece is overtly English, all of the components that make up the cabinet are derived from the French vocabulary of ornament. There were a number of firms in London that specialized in French-inspired furniture, such as Robert Hume, Louis Le Gaigneur and Thomas Parker. Of those three firms, Parker would seem to be the most likely candidate for the cabinets' manufacture. Parker's name is synonymous with English boullework of the extremely high quality that is found on this cabinet.

French. Circa 1930. These candelabra display a most intriguing and unusual blend of imagery derived from a variety of cultures. The double gourd form of the body has its origin in Chinese porcelain and this is underlined by the Chinese derivation of the pierced fretted gilt-bronze base. The naturalistically cast gilt-bronze roses bearing the candleholders issuing from stiff laurel leaves are a classical reference. The gilt-bronze handles in the form of braying donkey heads are without known precedent and could have a variety of meanings: A donkey may represent humility, honor or “Royalty” in disguise, as it was ridden by Christ on the Entry into Jerusalem, as well as by the Emperor Heraculis, divested of his robes, on entering the same city. The donkeys are tethered by a rope, which extends up towards and twists around the mouth of the gourd and then down to encircle its waist.