The top of shaped outline, the front is recurved with a small kneehole, fitted with a leather covered pull out writing slide and four drawers. The sides are slightly bowed. The top divided in three sections, the outer two hingeing outwards to reveal box sections, once used for storing toilet articles or wigs (french: perruque, therefore this type of funiture is called “perruquière”), the central one lifts up on a hinge to reveal an adjustable mirror.
The dressing table is supported on square-sectioned cabriole legs, the feet with gilt-bronze sabots. Being decorated on all sides, it is possible to place the dressing table or perruquière in the center of a room.
Dressing tables were essential pieces of furniture for fashionable 18th century ladies who spent much time at their toilette preparing for an endless series of entertainments and social appearances. A series of drawers, which could be secured by lock and key, rendered such furniture appropriate for storing personal effects and, especially, private correspondence.
The well proportioned curvy shape as well as thhe excellent marquetry decoration of the Louis XV dressing table lead to one of the most important Parisian cabinet makers of his time, Pierre Roussel:
Pierre Roussel (1723 – 1782, maitre 1745) established himself in a workshop under the sign of the image of Saint-Pierre in the Rue de Charinton in Paris. After modest beginnings he had become one of the leading cabinet makers by 1767. Roussel was elected a ‘jure’ in 1762 and was holding a number of important offices within his guild. Among his grand later patrons was the Prince de Condé, who made considerable purchases for the Palais Bourbon and the Château de Chantilly between 1775 and 1780.
Pierre Kjellberg: Le mobilier francais du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 2008, p. 766-775, fig. p. 768, 769a, 770b, 772a
Pierre Verlet u.a.: Collection Connaissance des Arts „ Grands Artisans d’autrefois“ – Les ébénistes du XVIIIe siècle francais, Lausanne 1971, p.129-133, fig. 130/1, p. 131/4.
Condition: very good, min. wear consistent with age and use, min. fading, French polsih refreshed – detailed condition report on request
