Drop-front secretaire (secrètaire à abattant)

René Dubois

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The form of this secretary, with its pierced pagoda-shaped top, is exceptional in French furniture. Although furniture in the Chinese taste was designed and executed in England during the second half of the eighteenth century, French chinoiserie was almost always limited to the surface decoration. The Oriental scenes in imitation lacquer on the front panels are based on designs for The Four Elements by François Boucher, known from engravings (1740) by Pierre Aveline. The element of fire, apparently the only one for which the original drawing by Boucher exists (now in the Metropolitan), shows a man pouring hot tea into the cup of a seated man who also appears twice on the front of the secretary. Charming tea-drinking scenes formed an important aspect of chinoiserie decoration.

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