As an example of know-how and the utmost technical mastery to be found in Revel, the reproduction of the roll-top writing desk of Louis XV fabricated in the Daïdé workshops, one would wager to be the boldest ever undertaken. It is brilliant proof that the talent and know-how achieved in the Lauragais town are of the highest order and that Revel fully deserves its title as the capital of French fine furniture.
Designed and built between 1760 and 1769, the roll-top writing desk of Louis XV is accepted worldwide as a masterpiece. Of incomparable beauty and great complexity of design, it is even seen in the eyes of certain people as the absolute masterpiece of the art of French furniture making. In 1760 an order was placed with Jean-François Oeben, cabinet maker to the King, and also an enthusiast of lock-making and mechanics, which was to take precedence over all his other work and to absorb him to the end of his life. This piece of furniture, which was meant to be thief-proof, was also intended to be the showpiece of the grandeur of France and the triumphant royalty then at its apogee. Jean-François Oeben, its inspired designer, died during the course of the third year of construction of this famous secretaire, whose masterful fabrication was then confided by his wife to Jean-Henri Riesener, who wooed her and subsequently married her in 1767, two years before the writing desk was delivered to Versailles...
During those nine years, the complete fabrication of this piece of furniture needed the participation of 14 different bodies of craftsmen and totalled 26,500 hours of work.
The writing desk was purchased by the King for the sum of 62,775 gold livres of that time. This price represents the equivalent of 20 years’salary of the Director of Gobelins (one of the most important Civil Servants of that thime), or 171 years’salary for a workman from Saint-Gobin (a manufactorer amongst the most famous of the XVIIIth Century).
(L. 187 cm – H. 155 cm – W. 97 cm – Weight : 470 kg).
The DAÏDÉ workshops have produced the body of Burgundy oak ant the seven slats of the roll-top of tulip tree wood, identical to the original by Oeben and Riesener.
