Featuring elegant lines, exquisite ormolu mounts and flawless construction, with spring-loaded side drawers and removable legs, this secrétaire is a superb example of Roentgen’s oeuvre. It belongs to a small group of similar D-shaped secrétaires by Roentgen, many of which have illustrious provenance.
The intriguing history of this lot is as mysterious as impressive. It has been recorded in the imperial collections and was almost certainly delivered to Tauride Palace originally. According to the research of Dr. Burkhardt Göres, the present lot was kept at a collection point in Saint Petersburg, waiting to be sold in the west in the late 1920s. It had been collected from Gatchina Palace, where four identical pieces by Roentgen were also recorded in 1880. For two identical pieces see B. Göres, Das Schaffen David Roentgens für Russland, Diss., 1979, St. Petersburg, cats. 216 and 217, for the fourth example see G. Ehret, Deutsche Möbel des 18. Jahrhunderts: Barock-Rokoko-Klassizismus, Munich 1986, p. 158, ill. 130. The pulls on the top drawers of all four cabinets at Gatchina, including the one in this sale, were changed at the same time in the nineteenth century. Since the three secrétaires referred to as cat. 216 and cat. 217 in Dr. Göres’ abovementioned dissertation and the one illustrated by Gloria Ehret are known to have been at Tauride Palace before being transferred to Gatchina, it is safe to assume that the present lot also originates from Tauride. Tauride, a vast edifice in Saint Petersburg and a gift of Catherine the Great to Prince Grigory Potemkin (1739-1791), was designed by the architect Ivan Starov. Potemkin was one of the most influential figures at court, an important military leader and long-time lover of Catherine, who was rumored to have married her in secret, and at the time of the building of his palace was at the very height of his power. The palace was furnished on a grandiloquent scale with one of the largest domed halls in Russia, a 256 feet colonnaded hall, and a winter garden over 600,000 square feet. Following his death, the Empress purchased Tauride Palace and engaged in extensive renovations, all of which were dismantled in 1796 following the accession of her son Paul I, who loathed anything that had given his mother pleasure and had the palace turned into a cavalry barracks. It is unclear whether the present secrétaire was purchased by Potemkin and installed at Tauride or if it was placed there after his death when the Empress purchased the building with its contents. Similar secrétaires, including the three mentioned by Göres and Ehret, are known to have been delivered by David Roentgen for the Imperial court. A detailed invoice from Roentgen to Catharine the Great, dated 23 March 1786, lists amongst about 130 pieces of furniture four secrétaires à abattant of this distinctive form. One of these, listed as nr. 24, is identifiable as the secrétaire sold Christie’s, London, 26 March 1981, lot 80, see W. Koeppe, Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens, New York, 2012, p. 195. The fall front of this secrétaire is centered by an ormolu medallion similarly to the pair sold Christie’s, London, 7 July 2016, lot 329. Another two versions of this type of secrétaire appear in a photograph taken in the 1930s, showing the first reception room of the apartments of Czar Alexander III at Gatchina Palace in Saint Petersburg, where the present lot was also recorded. The picture shows two secrétaires of this model; both with open D-shaped compartments to the sides, but differentiated by featuring a floral spray cast in high relief to the center of the front of one, while the other features only the outer beaded circlet and is now at Pavlovsk, see J. M. Greber, Abraham und David Roentgen: Möbel für Europa, Starnberg, vol. II., 1980, p. 270, fig. 527. In the known corpus of similar secrétaires, the lot offered here is unique as it does not feature a central motif on the fall front; while the abovementioned examples are decorated with medallions, floral-cast ormolu device, or a circlet, the upper section of this piece is mounted with bead-cast gilt bronze conforming to the side of the fall front, rendering this lot particularly pure in its neoclassicism. Eventually, the present secrétaire encountered the same fate as a great number of artifacts in the imperial collection and it was sold by the Soviet government before World War II to raise money for the country’s failing economy.