Drop-front desk (secrétaire à abattant or secrétaire en cabinet)

Roger Vandercruse, called Lacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Several related secretaries are known that have either a porcelain plaque or a marquetry roundel on the fall front and are signed or attributed to Roger Vandercruse. The son of a Flemish cabinetmaker, Vandercruse also used the French equivalent of his name, Lacroix. Typical of his oeuvre is the colorful cornflower and latticework marquetry. The decoration of the large Sèvres plaque, with its geometric pattern of ribbons and shells interspersed with diapered cartouches and garlands, is similar to that of useful wares, and thought to date to about 1764. Antedating the secretary by a decade, it may originally have been intended as the top for a small table. The maltese cross at the center of the plaque alludes to a special commission.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art