French Napoleon II mahogany and gilt bronze center desk circa 1855

Notes
Under the influence of Marie Antoinette, French artists began to draw inspiration from the 18th-century archaeological discoveries made in the Mediterranean during the time of Louis XVI. After the Revolution of 1789, under the Consulate of Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1804), the Egyptian campaign drew even more attention to one of the cradles of civilizations.
The “retour d’Egypte” style culturally and artistically had great success in France and Europe and reached as far as Russia; but much of this “Egyptomania” was politically driven to divert attention from the military failure of this campaign (defeat at Abukir, destruction of the French fleet by Admiral Nelson). The peak of this style’s success was reached when the book “voyages dans le Basse et la Haute Egypte pendants les campagnes du general Bonaparte” by Dominique Vivant Denon was published in 1802. He, with a host of artists and draftsmen, followed General Bonaparte throughout the campaign in Egypt, meticulously copying every archaeological vestige and symbol that was possible to see.
So it was that in the early decades of the 1800s the furnishings were adorned with sphinxes, palms, funerary urns, caryatids, Egyptian profiles, obelisks, and pyramids. The cabinetmakers and artists of the time were infected by this new fashion: house facades, fountains, and interior rooms were decorated in the Egyptian style; even the furniture felt the Egyptian influence: dark and flamed exotic woods, very dark gray marble, all imposing a certain rigor in sharp break with the “frivolity” of the tastes of the ancien regime.
The “return from Egypt” style lasted only a very short period (about ten years), replaced by the Empire style imposed by Napoleon I, but despite its short duration it is notable for originality, richness of the bronzes that adorned it, and sobriety in its lines.