BY JEAN-FRANCOIS LELEU, CIRCA 1775

Ingeniously disguised as a regular cabinet, this elegant secrétaire à abattant of unusual proportions epitomizes the restrained Neoclassical style for which Leleu was an early proponent. A closely comparable work by this refined master cabinet-maker is a bibliothèque basse sold Christie’s, London, 19 May 2021, lot 12. Both pieces have particularly clean silhouettes and utilize the natural beauty of exotic woods tastefully accented by restrained ormolu mounts. The design of the doors of this lot and the book case is essentially identical and features amaranth banding and gilt bronze rosette roundels to the corners. The cut-cornered outline of the doors is identical to the paneled sides of other meubles d’appui by Leleu, such as two smaller bibliothèque basses: one from the Alexander collection, see Christie’s, New York, 30 April 1999, lot 84, and another sold from the collection of Monsieur René Smadja, see Christie’s, Paris, 19 December 2007, lot 727. Similar panels with rosettes are also displayed on a pair of low cabinets now in the Musée de Nissim de Camondo, see S. Legrand-Rossi, Le Mobilier du Musée Nissim de Camondo, Dijon, 2012, pp. 3, 88-9.
Jean-François Leleu was one of the favoured assistants in the workshop of the great ébéniste Jean-François Oeben (1721-1763). After the early death of his master, he hoped to be entrusted with the running of the workshop, but was superseded by Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806), another of Oeben's assistants. Riesener married Oeben's widow and went on to become the court ébéniste of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette. Leleu left the workshop, became maître-ébéniste in 1764 and set up on his own. He attracted a grand and fastidious clientèle, notably the Duc d'Uzès, Baron d'Ivry, Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, Jean-Joseph de Laborde and the Prince de Condé to whom he delivered several sumptuous and celebrated pieces of furniture for the Palais Bourbon and the château at Chantilly in 1772 and 1773, see Svend Eriksen, Early Neo-classicism in France, London 1974, pp. 79-81, figs. 127-130.