Desk

This elegant walnut and mahogany writing desk reflects Emile Gallé’s belief that the beauty of the natural world should be the central inspirational force for furniture design. The traditional structure of the sloping, fall-front desk has been embellished with carefully chosen natural forms associated with Lorraine, the region of France where Gallé lived and worked. The legs are based on the furling forms of arum lilies and the bespoke bronze fittings have been inspired by flowers and woodland foliage. The references to Lorraine are most explicit in the exquisite marquetry panels on the front and sides of the desk, which depict native species of orchid in the regional landscape.

The desk was produced in the cabinet making factory that Gallé had established in Nancy in the mid-1880s to execute his furniture designs. In addition to fully equipped modern workshops, the factory housed an extensive collection of veneers and cabinet woods, and a garden of plants, which served as living models for related marquetry designs. [1]

Gallé’s writing desk design was first exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 and was produced by the factory in various versions. For example, there are two ‘Forêt Lorraine’ desks, very similar in form and design to this one, in collections at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and at Brighton Museum. These versions are interesting because they include an inlaid inscription which connects the forest of Lorraine with a line of poetry by Charles Baudelaire: ‘The forest of Lorraine – here everything would whisper silently to the soul in its own gentle mother tongue’. [2] This signals the spiritual significance that Gallé attached to the natural world as the source of inspiration for his designs. Gallé addressed this directly in his own eloquent texts about the possibilities of furniture design and working in wood. [3]

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