When André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) published the prints of his models for furniture around 1708, he presented himself as a designer, an inventor of new forms and, above all, a purveyor of furniture and objects of infinite diversity: from desks and chests of drawers, to clocks and chandeliers. Although he was not the inventor of many of these pieces of furniture, for which no definitive creators are known as they developed across the centuries, he was the one who gave them the shapes and silhouettes that we recognise today. It is difficult to determine exactly when furniture models first appear, but it is undoubtedly to the 17th century that we owe the birth of two particularly successful forms: the desk (bureau plat) and the chest of drawers (commode), which number among Boulle’s greatest achievements.
The desk
For centuries before Boulle, people worked at ordinary tables, often covered with carpets. To make these simple tables more practical for writing, cabinetmakers fitted them with single rows of drawers. The number of drawers was subsequently increased for storage space, giving rise to the eight-legged desk.
The first desks of this form, characterised by two tiers of drawers above eight legs and linked by stretchers, today frequently referred to as bureaux Mazarin, were designed around 1670. This period coincides with the start of Boulle’s career, when he produced this type of desk and decorated it with floral marquetry.
He also created a variation of this desk called the bureau brisé, which has the same shape as the eight-legged desk, but with a folding top that lifts up to reveal a narrow writing surface. Around this time, Boulle also began making tables with wooden marquetry, such as the one in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. These examples are illustrative of the first developments in Boulle’s style and models.
Boulle subsequently focused on the desk as a key piece within his production, in order to build his reputation as an innovative cabinetmaker. Several surviving desks by Boulle, as analysed in the catalogue of the major exhibition held at Chantilly in 2024, illustrate the slow evolution of his design, right until the appearance of the most modern variation of the desk, which is in line with the desk as we understand it today. We will now explore this series of Boulle desks, tracing their development chronologically:
1. The eight-legged desk
This eight-legged piece of furniture still belongs to the typology of the so-called ‘Mazarin’ desk, but has freed itself from the central X-shaped stretcher. A new space between the drawers allows the user's legs to pass through completely, especially since the furniture has widened from four to six feet in length. This iteration marks the development of the desk called bureau de ministre, an absolute symbol of power.
2. The double caisson desk
The birth of the double caisson desk in the years 1695–1700, which were usually about five feet long, constituted a major turning point in the evolution towards the future bureau plat by Boulle. He revolutionised the concept of the desk by removing both the four interior feet and the stretcher between them.
3. The acanthus scroll desk
The feet of this desk curve strongly, while the height of the drawers is reduced, and the desk has four perfectly symmetrical sides to be placed in the center of a room. The bureau plat is born.
4. The desk with satyr masks
In the early years of the 18th century, Boulle created the desk with satyr masks as one of his reference pieces of furniture. The general line becomes more sinuous, and the design of the previous model, which was still rather stiff, gives way to strong curves and counter curves.
5. Special commissions
Boulle created a number of unique desks as special commissions, which are exceptions to the linear evolution of his designs described in the previous examples. An extraordinary example is the six-legged desk from the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte.
6. The desk with female masks, a model for the prince de Condé
Boulle's workshop eventually returned to its fundamentals, with a more standardised stylistic proposal. Here, he created a new reference model, the so-called ‘Condé desk’, which is the only Boulle desk that can be firmly dated. It was saved from the fire in his workshop, on the night of 30 August 1720, thus giving a terminus ante quem for the work.
The chest of drawers
Boulle also played also a key role in developing one of the most successful furniture models of the 18th century: the chest of drawers. Tracing its origin to the eight-legged desk, Boulle transformed it into a new type of furniture by developing the number and size of the drawers. The examples made by Boulle for the bedroom of Louis XIV at the Grand Trianon in 1708–9 still rest on eight legs, like some of his desks. From 1698, chests of drawers were regularly delivered to the royal household or Garde-Meuble, long named in their inventories as table en bureau or ‘desk’, until one of them was baptised the bureau en commode in 1707, and finally commode in 1711.
By inventing new shapes and gradually modernising furniture, such as the desk and the chest of drawers, Boulle established himself as the greatest cabinetmaker of the 18th century.
This article was written by Mathieu Deldicque, Chief Curator and Director of the Musée Condé at the Château de Chantilly.