r a crotch shelf - Lot 80

r a crotch shelf Mahogany soft bill, with marble-topped hearth screen, base connected by a crotch shelf. Louis XVI period Missing fabric. Height : 95 cm - Width : 53 cm - Depth : 30 cm Eminently feminine, this delicate little piece of furniture perfectly illustrates the refined art of living in the XVIIIᵉ century, where every object had to combine elegance and ingenuity. Unlike the flat desk, reserved for important work, the "billet doux" lends itself to more intimate correspondence, the writing of a personal letter, a confidence or a tender word, just like its evocative name. Resting on a slender base, it features a mobile writing tablet, simply placed, which can be held in hand to write with ease from an armchair or even a bed, recalling the principle of the "delivery table" with its removable top. An elegant and practical feature is a sliding screen, once lined with fabric, to protect the face from the heat of a fireplace, making this piece as functional as it is elegant. In a century marked by the triumph of the epistolary genre, this type of furniture naturally found its place in the interiors of women of the world. If the XVIIᵉ century left us with the memory of the Marquise de Sévigné's fiery letters to her daughter, the XVIIIᵉ is that of the epistolary novel, where the letter becomes a veritable literary art. Françoise de Graffigny (1695-1758), a friend of Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet, composed Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1747), in which she explores feelings and cultural differences through the fictional correspondence of a young native girl. A few decades later, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos immortalized the power of the written word in Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782), where the letter becomes an instrument of manipulation and seduction. Witness to a vanished art of living, this charming billet doux embodies the delicacy of Louis XVI furniture, combining harmonious proportions and discreet ingenuity, in the image of the interiors where it was designed to fit in with grace and lightness.