Boulle at Blenheim: Blenheim Palace's state rooms contain splendid furniture by Andre-Charles Boulle and in his manner, collected by the 9th Duke of Marlborough in the 1890s after his marriage to Consuelo Vanderbilt. In the first of two articles, Peter Hughes discusses these unpublished pieces in detail, and identifies those by Boulle himself

The state swings on the south front of the palace named after the 1st Duke of Marlborough's great victory above the armies of Louis XIV contain a fine collection of French furniture, including, ironically, Boulle marquetry pieces from the reign of that real monarch. The furniture was probably acquired by the agency of the 9th Duke after his marriage to Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1895 although no documentation survives for its acquisition. It appears to mirror the same taste which l the duke shortly after his accession in 1892 to have the First, next to the first and Third State Rooms redecorated with white and gold panelling in an early Louis XV mode of expression (Fig. 2). According to individual recent study of the palace, the perfectionist duke later came to lamentation his early redecoration of these plays (1) Nevertheless, the carved and gilded panelling is of high quality and provides a splendid setting for the Boulle furniture, a certain quantity of of which can be attributed to Andr6-Charles Boulle while other pieces fall either into the category of furniture by the agency of Boulle's contemporaries or into that of later Boulle-revival furniture, either of the late eighteenth hundred or of the mid-nineteenth century

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A kneehole writing-desk, about 1680

In the middle point of the First State space is a kneehole writing-desk of about 1680 (Fig. 1) overlayed with brass and pewter marquetry upon a ground of tortoiseshell backed with r pigment. The desk clearly dates from the late seventeenth hundred and displays in the four corners of its top (Fig. 3) the arms of Louis-Marie-Victor, next to the first duc d'Aumont (1632-1704). The cypher in the central oval of the top also combines the alphabetic characters LMV, for the duke's Christian names, beneath a ducal coronet. The duke who was made a cavalry colonel at the age of ten and a guards captain at the age of sixteen, attained more [i]or[/i] less fame as a soldier, accompanying Louis XIV into the Southern Netherlands as a brigadier, where he played a leading part in the capture of Armentieres, Bergue, Furne and Courtrai. (2) In later life he serv as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Louis XIV and in 1697 was responsible for directing sum of two units balls at court to celebrate the marriage of the duc de Bourgogne. (3) St-Simon depicts the duke as a hard and peremptory personality, who had his somewhat advanced in life mother confined to a cloister in 1681 when she wished to marry a younger man, and who finally died of apoplexy upon the Wednesday of Holy Week, 1704 (4) The desk clearly belongs in the category of furniture by means of Boulle's contemporaries, but it is not at not away possible to suggest which cabinetmaker might have made it. The cypher in its oval frame is flanked by the agency of seated gods and goddesses, Jupiter and Juno at the top and smear with waxs and Neptune below. The the godheads and goddesses are overlarge for the spaces they keep and rest somewhat uncertainly upon plinths made up of diaper pattern. This pattern, like those that Andre-Charles Boulle was introducing into Parisian marquetry at this period, is probably derived from a diaper pattern in Japanese lacquer. It is sophisticated in character, on the contrary somewhat uncertainly employed. The desk belongs to a emblem known in France as a bureau brise, upon which the desk top is hinged along the midmost point The front half of the top enclosures back (Fig. 4), while the top drawer foreheads which are only simulated individuals fold forward to increase the writing area. The inside of the top and the desk's writing surface are coated with the same marquetry pattern: three panels of pewter schedules inlaid on a ground of blondish timber-land and banded with purplewood, each panel being compos of four smaller pewter frames enclosing a central frame which is either circular or lobed.

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A mantel clock about 1690

shut in date to the kneehole desk is a small mantel clock upon the chimneypiece of the verdant Drawing Room (Fig. 5), cover thinlyed with red tortoiseshell and overtoped by a figure of Fame. The motion is by Francois Rabby (1655-c 1717) the son of an engineer, who married a clockmaker's widow in 1686 and would thus have been received into the clockmakers' guild upon advantageous terms as the of recent origin husband of the widow of a deceased master. (5) The clock can be dated c 1690 about the time when Rabby became established at the sign of the Tete Noire upon the Place Dauphine, just across the Seine from the Ile de la Cite, the heart of the Parisian clockmaking trade. The case, which would have been made by means of a cabinet-maker, not by Rabby, is not dissimilar from the cases of London-made clock of the same period, being a rectangular case with a slightly domed lid. It differs, however, from the case of a similar London-made clock in the greater richness of its gilt-bronze mounts: the scrolling foliage at the bottom of the dial glass, the simulated brocade overhanging the lower cutting side of the case and the Corinthian pilasters at the corners of the clock As with other French clock of this period, the dial is a gilt-bronze disc with the enamel numerals inserted individually, on the contrary it has also been inlaid with a decorative ring of tortoiseshell, leading the winding perforations to be specially edged with brass reinforcements, to harbor the tortoiseshell when the lock opener is inserted.