An Exceptional and Important Regence Bureau Plat Attributed to Charles Cressent

This model of Bureau plat is referred to by Alexander Pradere as “The Bureau Plats with Chinese heads” and he says that these were the first examples of Bureau Plats that he made. At least 5 others are known, one made for Dupleix de Bacquencourt which is documented in an inventory of 1723, another very similar and with a cartonier was exposed at the Universal Exhibition in 1900 in Paris. A third is in the Getty Museum, a fourth is in the collection of the Duke of Sutherland and a fifth, also with a cartonier but different to the others with Mme De Behague. Provenance Chateau de La Tour de Saint-Pierre-Canivet, Normandy, France. The Moussaye family originally from Brittany take their name from a stronghold called Riviere-Moussaye located in Sevignac, not far from where the Chateau de La Moussaye was built. The family is descended from Gervais de la Moussaye, who was bishop of Saint-Malo in 1253. Their fortune came from being ship owners in St Malo who from the end of the 17th Century until the beginning of the 19th Century accumulated great wealth. Saint-Malo in the 18th Century was a busy port with an active commercial life. Fishing was one of their great activities, especially fishing for cod in distant seas. They were accustomed to venturing afar, and one of their captains Jacques Cartier was the founder of Canada. From the end of the Sixteenth Century, the manufacture of linen developed in Brittany and an important trade grew up with Cadiz in Spain and subsequently with Spanish America. Apart from The Chateau de La Tour de Saint Pierre the family also owned Chateau de La Moussaye and Chateau de La Chesnaye-Taniot.