Bureau du Roi

Bureau du Roi – is a unique cylinder desk designed and made for Louis XV in France. It is also known as Louis XVi’s roll-top secretary.

It was probably started in 1760 by its first designer, Jean-Francois Oeben who was the master cabinet maker of the royal arsenal and was finished in 1769 by Jean Henri Riesener after Oeben’s death.

It was commissioned for the new Cabinet du Roi at Versailles Palace, and was transferred to the Louvre Museum after the French Revolution. It was returned to its original location in the Palace of Versailles in the 20th Century. Highly decorative it incorporates intricate marquetry in a wide variety of fine woods, gilt-bronze mouldings of plaques, miniature busts, statuettes, vases and candle-stands. The original had a miniature bust of Louis XV on top, but this was replaced after his death in 1770 with a bust of Minerva.

Riesener made a simpler copy of it for the comte d’Orsay which can be seen in the Wallace Collection in London Many other copies of it were made from the 1870s onwards including examples by Francois Linke.