A SMALL LOUIS XVI GILT BRONZE-MOUNTED CITRONNIER AND AMARANTH BUREAU PLAT BY GODEFROY DESTER, LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

By repute, the Princesse de Lamballe, given by her to Etienne de Joly (1756-1837)

By descent to Madame Champeaux, sold by her granddaughter Madame Chesneau, Bureau et Salle de Vente des Commissaires-Priseurs, Reims, 4 February 1875

Etude Ader, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 20 December 1944, lot 57

C. Douglas Dillon (1909-2003), New York, before 1968

Jean Nicolay, L'art et la manière des maîtres ébénistes (Paris 1976), p. 149 fig. F (illustrated)

Dester ran a flourishing workshop in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, initially producing late Louis XV and Transitional pieces veneered with Chinese lacquer or marquetry designs of flowers and utensils and later adopting the more classical Louis XVI, using high quality mahogany veneers or trellis parquetry designs.

This desk is first recorded on the market en suite with a commode and secrétaire at an 1875 auction in Reims, and the original invoice is annotated with a note stating the furniture came from the Princesse de Lamballe:

Ces Meubles proviennent à Mme Chesneau vendeuse de sa grand-mère Mme Chambaud [?] en Ières noces et Mme Champeaux en secondes noces, laquelle était fille naturelle de M. de Joly, ministre de Louis XVI, avocat et ami de Mme la Princesse de Lamballe, qui lui avait donné ces meubles

Born in Turin, Princess Marie-Louise Thérèse of Savoy-Carignan (1749-1792) was married in 1767 to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre, Prince de Lamballe, grandson of Louis XIV's legitimized son the Comte de Toulouse and heir to one of the largest fortunes in France. He died one year later, and the widowed Princess became a confidante and lady-in-waiting to Marie-Antoinette. As such she was imprisoned during the Revolution and perished at the hands of the mob during the September Massacres of 1792. The lawyer Etienne de Joly served as counsel to King Louis XVI and was the last Minister of Justice in 1792 before the abolition of the monarchy. The group of furniture could well have been given to him by the Princesse de Lamballe as payment for services or for safekeeping - she had fled France for England briefly between June and October 1791 - and the suite then passed to his daughter Madame Champeaux.