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The 18th century was seen as the heyday of design, when creativity was at its peak, a golden age that brought to light avant-garde silhouettes, techniques, ornamentation and materials by master cabinetmakers like André-Charles Boulle, Charles Cressent, Bernard II Vanrisenburgh, Jean-François Oeben and Jean-Henri Riesener.

As the second son of Fran�ois Cressent, sculpteur du roi, and grandson of Charles Cressent, a furniture-maker of Amiens, who also became a sculptor, he inherited the tastes and aptitudes which were likely to make a finished designer and craftsman.

Cressent’s distinction is closely connected with the regency, but his earlier work had affinities with the school of Boulle, while his later pieces were full of originality.

He was likewise a sculptor, and among his plastic work is known to have been a bronze bust of Louis, duc d’Orl�ans, the son of the regent, for whom Cressent had made one of the finest examples of French furniture of the 18th century—the famous m�daillier now in the Biblioth�que Nationale.

Cressent’s bronze mounts were executed with a sharpness of finish and a grace and vigour of outline which were hardly excelled by his great contemporary Jacques Caffieri.