Desk (bonheur du jour) 1760 - 1780

Editor: This is the "Desk (bonheur du jour)" made sometime between 1760 and 1780, now residing at the Met. It's attributed to Claude-Charles Saunier, and looks like it's constructed from wood and gold. It feels almost like a miniature stage set, with those lacquered landscapes... What do you see in it? Curator: I see echoes of a world obsessed with the exotic and the artificial. The desk itself, a "bonheur du jour"— a 'delight of the day' — was designed for the delicate tasks of a lady of leisure: correspondence, perhaps, or the arrangement of flowers. But observe the landscapes adorning its surface. Editor: The Asian influence? Curator: Precisely. This is Japonisme, a romanticized vision of the East filtered through a European lens. Consider how these miniature scenes, with their stylized flora and fauna, project serenity and tranquility; values sought after by elites as a reaction against growing sociopolitical turmoil. Editor: So the symbolism isn’t just decorative, it reflects larger anxieties? Curator: Absolutely. It presents cultural memory—how one wishes to perceive another through selected visual rhetoric. Do you see how each panel encapsulates entire narrative landscapes into discrete units, not just for aesthetics, but as controlled pockets of 'ideal' space during unstable times? Each carefully placed crane or blossoming branch carried an emotional weight for its owner, more than just beauty alone. Editor: That makes a lot of sense. I’d seen the desk as beautiful, but a bit frivolous. Curator: Frivolity, perhaps. However, under that gleaming gold, we see the quiet hopes and concerns, manifested as visual motifs, etched into every corner. Now do you see the silent narratives held within this delightful item? Editor: Definitely! The way the art combines practicality with storytelling gives this work another layer of complexity. Curator: Yes, precisely, and visual rhetoric as silent yet poignant memory.