André Charles Boulle
Encyclopedia
André-Charles Boulle was the French cabinetmaker
who is generally considered to be the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry
, even "the most remarkable of all French cabinetmakers." His fame in marquetry led to his name being given to the fashion he perfected of inlaying brass and tortoise-shell, known as Boulle (or, in 19th-century Britain, Buhl work).
which had been set apart by Henri IV
for the use of the most favoured among the artists employed by the crown. To be admitted to these galleries was not only to receive a signal mark of royal favor, but to enjoy the important privilege of freedom from the trammels of the trade guilds. Boulle was given the deceased Jean Macé's own lodging in 1672 by Louis XIV
upon the recommendation of his minister of the arts Jean-Baptiste Colbert
, who described Boulle as le plus habile ébéniste
de Paris; in the patent conferring this privilege, he is described also as chaser, gilder
and maker of marquetry. He received the post ofpremier ébéniste du Roi.
Boulle appears to have been originally a painter, since the first payment to him by the crown of which there is any record (1669) specifies ouvrages de peinture. He was employed for many years at Versailles
, where the mirrored walls, the floors of wood mosaic, the inlaid paneling and the marquetery furniture in the Cabinet du Dauphin (1682-86) were regarded as his most remarkable work. These rooms were dismantled in the 18th century and their outmoded contents dispersed, but an inventory of their ornamentation has recently been discovered in the National Archives in Paris.
Boulle's royal commissions were numerous, as we learn both from the accounts of the Bâtiments du Roi
and from the correspondence of the marquis de Louvois
. Foreign princes and the great nobles, government ministers and financiers of his own country crowded to him with commissions, and the mot of the abbé de Marolles
, Boulle y tourne en ovale, has become a stock quotation in the literature of French cabinetmaking.
Boulle's output included commodes, bureaux, armoires, pedestals, clockcases and lighting fixtures, richly mounted with gilt-bronze that he modeled himself.
Despite his distinction, the facility with which he worked, the high prices he obtained, and his workshops full of clever craftsmen, Boulle appears to have been constantly short of money, in part the result of his obsession for collecting works of art. He did not always pay his workmen. Clients who had made considerable advances failed to obtain the fine pieces they had ordered; more than one application was made for permission to arrest him for debt under orders of the courts within the asylum of the Louvre. In 1704, the king granted him six months' protection from his creditors on condition that Boulle use the time to regulate his affairs or ce sera la dernière grace que sa majesté lui fera l'dessus. Twenty years later, one of his sons was arrested at Fontainebleau
and kept in prison for debt until the king had him released.
In 1720 his finances were still further embarrassed by a fire which, beginning in another atelier, extended to his workshop in the Place du Louvre, one of three he maintained and destroyed twenty workbenches and their associated tools of eighteen ébénistes and two menuisiers, and most of the seasoned materials, appliances, models, and finished work. The salvage was sold, and a petition for financial help was sent to the Regent
, the result of which does not appear in surviving documents. According to Boulle's friend Pierre-Jean Mariette
, many of his pecuniary difficulties were caused by his passion for collecting pictures, engravings, and other objects of art. The inventory of his losses in the fire, which exceeded 40,000 livres, enumerates many old masters, including 48 drawings by Raphael, wax models by Michelangelo
and the manuscript journal kept by Rubens in Italy. Boulle attended every sale of drawings and engravings. He had borrowed at high interest to pay for his purchases, and when the next sale took place, fresh expedients were devised for obtaining more money. Collecting was to Boulle a mania of which, said his friend Mariette, it was impossible to cure him. He died in 1732, full of fame, years and debts.
Attribution of furniture to Boulle's workshop is hampered by the lack of documented pieces. Rather than the royal wardrobe, the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, he worked through the Bâtiments du Roi
, which did not mark new arrivals with entry numbers nor keep a detailed daybook. Of all his royal commissions, only the pair of commodes delivered for the King's use at the Grand Trianon
in 1708 and 1709 (illustration, left) can be linked securely to documentation. A series of grand armoires in the Louvre Museum and the Wallace Collection
are also securely attributed to his workshop. Attributions, based on the refinements of the marquetry and the re-use of marquetry templates and characteristic boldly sculptural gilt-bronze mounts, are also based on three groups of visual documents: a group of furniture designs engraved by Boulle himself and published by his friend Pierre-Jean Mariette
about 1720; pieces depicted in a series of workshop drawings traditionally ascribed to Boulle in the Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris and private collections; and the desciptions in the inventory of works in progress made when Boulle transferred legal ownership of the workshops to his sons in 1715.
All greatness is the product of its opportunities, and the elder Boulle was made by the happy circumstances of his time. He was born into a France which was just entering upon the most brilliant period of sumptuary magnificence which any nation has known in modern times. Louis XIV, so avid of the delights of the eye, by the reckless extravagance of his example, turned the thoughts of his courtier
s to domestic splendors which had hitherto been rare. The spacious palaces which arose in his time needed rich embellishment, and Boulle, who had not only inherited the rather flamboyant Italian traditions of the late Renaissance
, but had ébénisterie in his blood, arose, as some such man invariably does arise, to gratify tastes in which personal pride and love of art were not unequally intermingled. He was by no means the first Frenchman to practice the delightful art of marquetry, nor was he quite the inventor of the inlay of brass or pewter and tortoiseshell which is associated with his name; but no artist, before or since, has used these motives with such astonishing skill, courage and surety. He produced pieces of monumental solidity blazing with harmonious color, or gleaming with the sober and dignified reticence of ebony
, ivory
, and white metal. The Renaissance artists chiefly employed wood in making furniture, ornamenting it with gilding and painting, and inlaying it with agate
, cornelian, lapis lazuli
, marble of various tints, ivory, tortoiseshell
, mother-of-pearl, and various woods. Boulle improved upon this by inlaying brass devices into wood or tortoiseshell, which last he greatly used according to the design he had immediately in view, whether flowers, scenes, scrolls, etc.; to these he sometimes added enameled metal.
Indeed the use of tortoiseshell became so characteristic that any furniture, however cheap and common, which has a reddish fond that might by the ignorant be mistaken for inlay, was described as Buhl in the nineteenth century. The name is the invention of a British auction
eer and furniture maker. In this process, the brass is thin, and, like the ornamental wood or tortoiseshell, forms a veneer. In the first instance, the production of Boulle's work was costly, owing to the quantity of valuable material that was cut away and wasted, and, in addition, the labor lost in separately cutting for each article or copy of a pattern. By a subsequent improvement, Boulle effected an economy by gluing together various sheets of material and sawing through the whole, so that an equal number of figures and matrices were produced at one operation. Boulle adopted from time to time various plans for the improvement of his designs. He placed gold leaf
or other suitable material under the tortoiseshell to produce such effect as he required; he chased the brasswork with a graver for a like purpose, and, when the metal required to be fastened down with brass pins or nails, these were hammered flat and disguised by ornamental chasing. He also adopted, in relief or in the round, brass feet, brackets, edgings, and other ornaments of appropriate design, partly to protect the corners and edges of his work, and partly for decoration. He subsequently used other brass mountings, such as claw feet to pedestals, or figures in high or low relief, according to the effect he desired to produce. These mounts in the pieces that undoubtedly come from Boulle's atelier are nearly always of the greatest excellence. They were cast in the rough; the tools of the chaser gave them their sharpness, their minute finish, and their jewel-like smoothness.
Unhappily it is by no means easy, even for the expert, to declare the authenticity of a commode, a bureau, or a table in the manner of Boulle and to all appearance from his workshops. His sons unquestionably carried on the traditions for some years after his death, and his imitators were many and capable. A few of the more magnificent pedigree-pieces are among the worlds mobiliary treasures. There are, for instance, two famous armoires, which fetched 12,075 at the Hamilton Palace sale; the marquetry commodes, enriched with bronze mounts, formerly in the Bibliothèque Mazarine
; various cabinets and commodes and tables in the Louvre, the Musée de Cluny and the Mobilier National; the marriage coffers of the dauphin which were in the San Donato collection. There are several fine authenticated pieces in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, together with others consummately imitated, probably in the Louis Seize period. On the rare occasions when a pedigree example comes into the auction room, it invariably commands a high price; but there can be little doubt that the most splendid and sumptuous specimens of Boulle are diminishing in number, while the second and third classes of his work are perhaps becoming more numerous. The truth is that this wonderful work, with its engraved or inlaid designs; its myriads of tiny pieces of ivory and copper, ebony and tortoiseshell, all kept together with glue and tiny chased nails, and applied very often to a rather soft, white wood, is not meet to withstand the ravages of time and the variations of the atmosphere. Alternate heat and humidity are even greater enemies of inlaid furniture than time and wear. Such delicate objects were rarely used, and the most talented of the artists were employed by the crown. To be admitted to these galleries was not only to receive a signal mark of royal favor, but to enjoy the important privilege of freedom from the trammels of the trade gilds.
Cabinet making
Cabinet making is the practice of using various woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture.Cabinet making involves techniques such as creating appropriate joints, dados, bevels, chamfers and shelving systems, the use of finishing tools such as routers to create decorative...
who is generally considered to be the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry
Marquetry
Marquetry is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furniture or even seat furniture, to decorative small objects with smooth, veneerable surfaces or to freestanding pictorial panels...
, even "the most remarkable of all French cabinetmakers." His fame in marquetry led to his name being given to the fashion he perfected of inlaying brass and tortoise-shell, known as Boulle (or, in 19th-century Britain, Buhl work).
Life
André-Charles Boulle was the son of Jean Boulle, whose original name was Johan Bolt and was of German origin being born in the Duchy of Guelders. André-Charles became the most famous of his family. Boulle's skill and reputation must have begun at a comparatively early age; by age 30, he had already been granted one of those lodgings in the galleries of the LouvrePalais du Louvre
The Louvre Palace , on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, is a former royal palace situated between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois...
which had been set apart by Henri IV
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
for the use of the most favoured among the artists employed by the crown. To be admitted to these galleries was not only to receive a signal mark of royal favor, but to enjoy the important privilege of freedom from the trammels of the trade guilds. Boulle was given the deceased Jean Macé's own lodging in 1672 by Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
upon the recommendation of his minister of the arts Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
, who described Boulle as le plus habile ébéniste
Ébéniste
Ébéniste is the French word for a cabinetmaker, whereas in French menuisier denotes a woodcarver or chairmaker. The English equivalent for "ébéniste," "ebonist," is never commonly used. Originally, an ébéniste was one who worked with ebony, a favoured luxury wood for mid-seventeenth century...
de Paris; in the patent conferring this privilege, he is described also as chaser, gilder
Gilding
The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...
and maker of marquetry. He received the post ofpremier ébéniste du Roi.
Boulle appears to have been originally a painter, since the first payment to him by the crown of which there is any record (1669) specifies ouvrages de peinture. He was employed for many years at Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
, where the mirrored walls, the floors of wood mosaic, the inlaid paneling and the marquetery furniture in the Cabinet du Dauphin (1682-86) were regarded as his most remarkable work. These rooms were dismantled in the 18th century and their outmoded contents dispersed, but an inventory of their ornamentation has recently been discovered in the National Archives in Paris.
Boulle's royal commissions were numerous, as we learn both from the accounts of the Bâtiments du Roi
Bâtiments du Roi
The Bâtiments du Roi was a division of Department of the household of the Kings of France in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.-History:...
and from the correspondence of the marquis de Louvois
François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois
François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois was the French Secretary of State for War for a significant part of the reign of Louis XIV. Louvois and his father, Michel le Tellier, would increase the French Army to 400,000 soldiers, an army that would fight four wars between 1667 and 1713...
. Foreign princes and the great nobles, government ministers and financiers of his own country crowded to him with commissions, and the mot of the abbé de Marolles
Michel de Marolles
Michel de Marolles , known as the abbé de Marolles, was a French churchman and translator, known for his collection of engravings. He became a monk in 1610 and later was abbot of Villeloin . He was the author of many translations of Latin poets and was part of many salons, notably that of Madeleine...
, Boulle y tourne en ovale, has become a stock quotation in the literature of French cabinetmaking.
Boulle's output included commodes, bureaux, armoires, pedestals, clockcases and lighting fixtures, richly mounted with gilt-bronze that he modeled himself.
Despite his distinction, the facility with which he worked, the high prices he obtained, and his workshops full of clever craftsmen, Boulle appears to have been constantly short of money, in part the result of his obsession for collecting works of art. He did not always pay his workmen. Clients who had made considerable advances failed to obtain the fine pieces they had ordered; more than one application was made for permission to arrest him for debt under orders of the courts within the asylum of the Louvre. In 1704, the king granted him six months' protection from his creditors on condition that Boulle use the time to regulate his affairs or ce sera la dernière grace que sa majesté lui fera l'dessus. Twenty years later, one of his sons was arrested at Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...
and kept in prison for debt until the king had him released.
In 1720 his finances were still further embarrassed by a fire which, beginning in another atelier, extended to his workshop in the Place du Louvre, one of three he maintained and destroyed twenty workbenches and their associated tools of eighteen ébénistes and two menuisiers, and most of the seasoned materials, appliances, models, and finished work. The salvage was sold, and a petition for financial help was sent to the Regent
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Philippe d'Orléans was a member of the royal family of France and served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723. Born at his father's palace at Saint-Cloud, he was known from birth under the title of Duke of Chartres...
, the result of which does not appear in surviving documents. According to Boulle's friend Pierre-Jean Mariette
Pierre-Jean Mariette
Pierre-Jean Mariette was a collector of and dealer in old master prints, a renowned connoisseur, especially of prints and drawings, and a chronicler of the careers of French Italian and Flemish artists...
, many of his pecuniary difficulties were caused by his passion for collecting pictures, engravings, and other objects of art. The inventory of his losses in the fire, which exceeded 40,000 livres, enumerates many old masters, including 48 drawings by Raphael, wax models by Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
and the manuscript journal kept by Rubens in Italy. Boulle attended every sale of drawings and engravings. He had borrowed at high interest to pay for his purchases, and when the next sale took place, fresh expedients were devised for obtaining more money. Collecting was to Boulle a mania of which, said his friend Mariette, it was impossible to cure him. He died in 1732, full of fame, years and debts.
Boulle's sons
Boulle left four sons who followed in his footsteps in more than one sense: Jean -Philippe (before 1690-before 1745), Pierre-Benoît (d. 1741), Charles-André (1685–1749) and Charles-Joseph (1688–1754). He made over the contents of his workshops to them in 1715. In spite of the fact that each was granted the title ébéniste du roi, their financial affairs were embarrassed throughout their lives, and the three last are known to have died in debt.Attribution of furniture to Boulle's workshop is hampered by the lack of documented pieces. Rather than the royal wardrobe, the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, he worked through the Bâtiments du Roi
Bâtiments du Roi
The Bâtiments du Roi was a division of Department of the household of the Kings of France in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.-History:...
, which did not mark new arrivals with entry numbers nor keep a detailed daybook. Of all his royal commissions, only the pair of commodes delivered for the King's use at the Grand Trianon
Grand Trianon
The Grand Trianon was built in the northwestern part of the Domain of Versailles at the request of Louis XIV, as a retreat for the King and his maîtresse en titre of the time, the marquise de Montespan, and as a place where the King and invited guests could take light meals away from the strict...
in 1708 and 1709 (illustration, left) can be linked securely to documentation. A series of grand armoires in the Louvre Museum and the Wallace Collection
Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
are also securely attributed to his workshop. Attributions, based on the refinements of the marquetry and the re-use of marquetry templates and characteristic boldly sculptural gilt-bronze mounts, are also based on three groups of visual documents: a group of furniture designs engraved by Boulle himself and published by his friend Pierre-Jean Mariette
Pierre-Jean Mariette
Pierre-Jean Mariette was a collector of and dealer in old master prints, a renowned connoisseur, especially of prints and drawings, and a chronicler of the careers of French Italian and Flemish artists...
about 1720; pieces depicted in a series of workshop drawings traditionally ascribed to Boulle in the Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris and private collections; and the desciptions in the inventory of works in progress made when Boulle transferred legal ownership of the workshops to his sons in 1715.
All greatness is the product of its opportunities, and the elder Boulle was made by the happy circumstances of his time. He was born into a France which was just entering upon the most brilliant period of sumptuary magnificence which any nation has known in modern times. Louis XIV, so avid of the delights of the eye, by the reckless extravagance of his example, turned the thoughts of his courtier
Courtier
A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
s to domestic splendors which had hitherto been rare. The spacious palaces which arose in his time needed rich embellishment, and Boulle, who had not only inherited the rather flamboyant Italian traditions of the late Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, but had ébénisterie in his blood, arose, as some such man invariably does arise, to gratify tastes in which personal pride and love of art were not unequally intermingled. He was by no means the first Frenchman to practice the delightful art of marquetry, nor was he quite the inventor of the inlay of brass or pewter and tortoiseshell which is associated with his name; but no artist, before or since, has used these motives with such astonishing skill, courage and surety. He produced pieces of monumental solidity blazing with harmonious color, or gleaming with the sober and dignified reticence of ebony
Ebony
Ebony is a dense black wood, most commonly yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, but ebony may also refer to other heavy, black woods from unrelated species. Ebony is dense enough to sink in water. Its fine texture, and very smooth finish when polished, make it valuable as an...
, ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
, and white metal. The Renaissance artists chiefly employed wood in making furniture, ornamenting it with gilding and painting, and inlaying it with agate
Agate
Agate is a microcrystalline variety of silica, chiefly chalcedony, characterised by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks and can be common in certain metamorphic rocks.-Etymology...
, cornelian, lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli is a relatively rare semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue color....
, marble of various tints, ivory, tortoiseshell
Tortoiseshell material
Tortoiseshell or tortoise shell is a material produced mainly from the shell of the hawksbill turtle, an endangered species. It was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s in the manufacture of items such as combs, sunglasses, guitar picks and knitting needles...
, mother-of-pearl, and various woods. Boulle improved upon this by inlaying brass devices into wood or tortoiseshell, which last he greatly used according to the design he had immediately in view, whether flowers, scenes, scrolls, etc.; to these he sometimes added enameled metal.
Indeed the use of tortoiseshell became so characteristic that any furniture, however cheap and common, which has a reddish fond that might by the ignorant be mistaken for inlay, was described as Buhl in the nineteenth century. The name is the invention of a British auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
eer and furniture maker. In this process, the brass is thin, and, like the ornamental wood or tortoiseshell, forms a veneer. In the first instance, the production of Boulle's work was costly, owing to the quantity of valuable material that was cut away and wasted, and, in addition, the labor lost in separately cutting for each article or copy of a pattern. By a subsequent improvement, Boulle effected an economy by gluing together various sheets of material and sawing through the whole, so that an equal number of figures and matrices were produced at one operation. Boulle adopted from time to time various plans for the improvement of his designs. He placed gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
or other suitable material under the tortoiseshell to produce such effect as he required; he chased the brasswork with a graver for a like purpose, and, when the metal required to be fastened down with brass pins or nails, these were hammered flat and disguised by ornamental chasing. He also adopted, in relief or in the round, brass feet, brackets, edgings, and other ornaments of appropriate design, partly to protect the corners and edges of his work, and partly for decoration. He subsequently used other brass mountings, such as claw feet to pedestals, or figures in high or low relief, according to the effect he desired to produce. These mounts in the pieces that undoubtedly come from Boulle's atelier are nearly always of the greatest excellence. They were cast in the rough; the tools of the chaser gave them their sharpness, their minute finish, and their jewel-like smoothness.
Unhappily it is by no means easy, even for the expert, to declare the authenticity of a commode, a bureau, or a table in the manner of Boulle and to all appearance from his workshops. His sons unquestionably carried on the traditions for some years after his death, and his imitators were many and capable. A few of the more magnificent pedigree-pieces are among the worlds mobiliary treasures. There are, for instance, two famous armoires, which fetched 12,075 at the Hamilton Palace sale; the marquetry commodes, enriched with bronze mounts, formerly in the Bibliothèque Mazarine
Bibliothèque Mazarine
The Bibliothèque Mazarine is the oldest public library in France.- History :The Bibliothèque Mazarine was initially the personal library of cardinal Mazarin , who was a great bibliophile...
; various cabinets and commodes and tables in the Louvre, the Musée de Cluny and the Mobilier National; the marriage coffers of the dauphin which were in the San Donato collection. There are several fine authenticated pieces in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, together with others consummately imitated, probably in the Louis Seize period. On the rare occasions when a pedigree example comes into the auction room, it invariably commands a high price; but there can be little doubt that the most splendid and sumptuous specimens of Boulle are diminishing in number, while the second and third classes of his work are perhaps becoming more numerous. The truth is that this wonderful work, with its engraved or inlaid designs; its myriads of tiny pieces of ivory and copper, ebony and tortoiseshell, all kept together with glue and tiny chased nails, and applied very often to a rather soft, white wood, is not meet to withstand the ravages of time and the variations of the atmosphere. Alternate heat and humidity are even greater enemies of inlaid furniture than time and wear. Such delicate objects were rarely used, and the most talented of the artists were employed by the crown. To be admitted to these galleries was not only to receive a signal mark of royal favor, but to enjoy the important privilege of freedom from the trammels of the trade gilds.
External links
- Boulle's Inlays Dossier de l’Art Boulle & Versailles
- Ecole Boulle Paris
- http://www.acboulle.orgAndré Charles Boulle (1642-1732) and the Art of his Time, a new Style for Europe}