This elegant meuble d’appui illustrates the persistence and fashion of re-using earlier Boulle marquetry panels for contemporary furniture during the first half of the nineteenth century. This practice had reached its apogee a few decades earlier, under Louis XVI, as detailed by Alexandre Pradère in his indispensable study, see A. Pradère, "Boulle. Du Louis XIV sous Louis XVI", in L'Objet d'Art, n. 4, February 1988, pp. 28-43. In addition to illustrating the reuse of old marquetry panels, this lot also shows an important phase in the evolution of furniture types. In the post-Louis XIV period, tall cupboards and large cabinets were replaced by low cupboards or bas d'armoire. Under Louis XIV, pedestal cupboards and cabinets were in vogue, with their richest, most elaborate panels arranged at eye level. In contrast, interior decoration in the second half of the eighteenth century focused on the placement of pictures upon walls. Many Boulle cabinets, now too large, were redesigned with the bases separated or turned into lower pieces of furniture that accommodated paintings above them.

The fact that this cabinet is stamped 'E LEVASSEUR' provides a direct link to Boulle's workshop as Pierre-Etienne Levasseur (maître in 1782) had apprenticed with Boulle's son Charles-Joseph. He was one of the foremost cabinet-makers who specialized in Boulle marquetry in the Louis XVI period, and some of his most accomplished works in this style are a series of bibliothèques basses based on Boulle's prototypes, including a set made for the painter Vigée-Lebrun. Both Levasseur's son Pierre-Etienne and his grandson Pierre-François-Henri (also known as Levasseur 'jeune') continued to make furniture with Boulle marquetry well into the 1820's, with Levasseur 'jeune' taking over his father's business, based at 123, rue Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in 1823. They both continued to use the elder Levasseur's stamp.