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{{Short description|Ornamented royal cylinder desk}}

The '''''Bureau du Roi''''' ('King's desk') is the name given to the richly ornamented royal [[Cylinder desk]] whose construction was started under [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] and finished under [[Louis XVI of France|Louis XVI]] of [[France]]. It is the most lavishly decorated [[desk]] ever made, surpassing even the huge decorative "kunstschrank" [[secretary desk]]s of [[Germany]].

{{Infobox artifact

| name = {{lang|fr|Bureau du Roi}}

| image = File:Bureau du Roi vue de face avec pièce.jpg

| material = [[Bronze]], [[marquetry]] of a variety of fine woods, [[Sèvres porcelain]]<ref name="deco art"/>

| size = 147.3 x 192.5 x 105<ref name="deco art"/>

| writing =

| created = 1760–1769<ref name="deco art">{{cite book|last1=Jacquemart|first1=Albert|title=Decorative Art|date=2012|publisher=Parkstone|isbn=978-1-84484-899-7|page=12|url=|language=en}}</ref>

| ___location = [[Palace of Versailles]], [[Versailles]], France

}}

The '''{{lang|fr|Bureau du Roi}}''' ({{IPA|fr|byʁo dy ʁwa}}, 'the King's desk'), also known as '''Louis XV's roll-top desk''' ({{langx|fr|Secrétaire à cylindre de Louis XV}}), is the richly ornamented royal [[cylinder desk]] which was constructed at the end of [[Louis XV]]'s reign, and is now again in the [[Palace of Versailles]].

The ''Bureau du Roi'' was probably started in [[1760]], when the commission was formally announced. Its first designer was [[Jean Francis Oeben|Jean-François Oeben]], the master cabinet maker of the royal arsenal. The first step in its construction was the fabrication of an extremely detailed miniature model in wax . The full scale desk was finished in [[1769]] by his successor, [[Jean Henri Riesener]], who had married Oeben's widow. Made for the new ''Cabinet du Roi'' at [[Versailles]], it now resides in the [[Louvre]] Museum in [[Paris]].

==History==

The desk is covered with intricate [[marquetry]] of a wide variety of fine woods. In an oval reserve at the center of its 'public' side, away from the king himself, is the marquetry head of Silence, with forefinger to lips, a reminder of the discretion required in the king's business. Gilt-bronze moldings of plaques, statuettes, miniature busts and vases, even integral scrolling gilt-bronze candle stands, further adorn the surfaces of the desk. The original design was to have a miniature bust of [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] on top, but it was replaced by [[Minerva]] after his death in 1770.

The ''{{lang|fr|Bureau du Roi''}} was probably started in [[1760]], when the commission was formally announced. Its first designer was [[Jean Francis Oeben|Jean-François Oeben]], the master cabinet maker of the royal arsenal. The first step in its construction was the fabrication of an extremely detailed miniature model in wax . The full -scale desk was finished in [[1769]] by his successor, [[Jean Henri Riesener]], who had married Oeben's widow. Made for the new ''Cabinet du Roi'' at [[Versailles]], it now resides in the [[Louvre]] Museum in [[Paris]].

Made for the new {{lang|fr|Cabinet du Roi}} at the Palace of Versailles, it was transferred to the [[Louvre]] Museum in [[Paris]] after the [[French Revolution]], but has been returned to the Palace of Versailles in the 20th century where it stands again in the room where it was standing before the Revolution: the {{lang|fr|Cabinet intérieur du Petit Appartement}} ('Inner study of the Private Apartments'), the famous study room where kings Louis XV and [[Louis XVI]] carried out their daily work, and where King Louis XVI decided to support the [[American Revolutionary War|American insurgents]] in 1777. Secret diplomatic papers were kept inside the desk's secret drawers, whose only key the king always carried with him.<ref>{{cite book |language=fr |author1=((Anonyme)) |title=Merveilleux Meubles de France |pages=76–77|date=1987 |publisher=Mercure Diffusion; Princesse |___location=Paris |isbn=978-2859611736}}</ref>

The creation of the ''Bureau du Roi'' symbolizes the culmination of nearly a century of efforts in the application of [[mercantilism]] in France. This was started by [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]] in the [[17th century]], to promote French manufactures of all kinds, in luxury goods as well as commodities. All the decorative arts were targeted under this strategy, and cabinet-making was no exception. Under his plan, luxury goods would serve as examples for inciting the quality manufacture of lesser products. Within the ___domain of luxury goods royal masterpieces would serve as examples at a higher level.

==Description==

Symbolically, Versailles lay at the center of monarchic France. At the heart of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV's]] Baroque Versailles stood the ''Chambre du Roi'', the king's bedroom, centered upon the King's Bed behind a railing, and its morning rituals of the ''lever du Roi'' (the King's arising), all framing the person of the king in a hieratic [[canopy of estate]], attended by the recently-tamed nobles. By contrast, at the heart of Louis XV's Rococo Versailles of the mid-18th century, with its more domestic rituals, stood this functioning symbol of a benevolent autocrat, attended by his ''bureau''cratic ministers, now largely drawn from the legally-trained upper middle class.

The desk is covered with intricate [[marquetry]] of a wide variety of fine woods. In an oval reserve at the center of its '"public'" side, away from the king himself, is the marquetry head of "Silence", with forefinger to lips, a reminder of the discretion required in the king's business. Gilt-bronze moldings of plaques, statuettes, miniature busts and vases, even integral scrolling gilt-bronze candle stands, further adorn the surfaces of the desk. The original design was to have a miniature bust of [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] on top, but it was replaced by [[Minerva]] after his death in 1770.

Riesener later executed a simplified second version of the {{lang|fr|Bureau du Roi}} for [[Pierre Gaspard Marie Grimod d'Orsay]], comte d'Orsay; today this may be seen in the [[Wallace Collection]] in [[London]]. His copy was the first of a number of replicas that were produced from the 1870s onwards by leading cabinetmakers in Paris, including four examples by [[François Linke]].<ref>{{Cite web |website=The Wallace Collection |access-date=18 December 2015|url=http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=64070&viewType=detailView |title=Roll-top desk: Copy of the bureau du roi of Louis XV |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222174848/http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=64070&viewType=detailView |archive-date=2015-12-22 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Riesener: The Furniture - Roll-top desk (F102) |url=https://www.wallacecollection.org/riesener/the-furniture/desks/roll-top-desk-f102/ |website=The Wallace Collection |access-date=24 January 2023 |language=en}}</ref>

See also the [[list of desk forms and types]].

<gallery widths="150px" heights="150px">

File:Bureau du roi, coté droit et face avant.jpg|Side view

File:Mesa de Luis XV. 04.JPG|Candleholder

File:Bureau du Roi, face avant droite - détail bronze et marqueterie abattant.jpg|Detail

File:Bureau du Roi, coté droit détail médaillon.jpg|Detail, side

File:Bureau du Roi, détail marqueterie droite de l'abattant.jpg|Marquetry medallion

File:Bureau du Roi plateau supérieur et horloge.jpg|Top

File:Bureau du Roi dessous n° d'inventaire.jpg|Underside

</gallery>

==References==

{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==

* Brunhammer, Yvonne; Monique de Fayet. ''Meubles et ensembles, époque Louis XVI''. Paris, Éditions Charles Massin, 1965. Pages 59, 60, 61, 65.

* ''Grande encyclopédie illustrée des meubles''. Paris: Flammarion, 1980. Page 118.

* ''Histoire du mobilier''. Paris: Editions Atlas, 1979. Pages 105, 106, 107, 144.

==See also==

{{Commons category|Louis XV's roll-top secretary}}

*[[Henry VIII's writing desk]]

See also the *[[listList of desk forms and types]].

*[[Resolute desk|''Resolute'' desk]]

[[Category:Individual desks]]

[[Category:Palace of Versailles]]

[[Category:Louis XV]]