Nine years after the creation of Marie-Antoinette’s Turkish Boudoir at Fontainebleau, she decided she wanted a new boudoir next to her bedroom on the same level. Marie Leszczyknsa had put her own version of a boudoir there 50 years earlier.
The “Silver” boudoir (the silver walls are actually white gold) once again reflects the taste for exotic historical themes. The walls have Pompeian themes. Over each of the four doors are sculptured figures representing the muses. The new furniture ordered for the boudoir included a variety of chairs, a firescreen and footstool.
Reisener created two pieces of furniture for the room—a small table and a roll top desk in mother of pearl set in diamond shaped gilded copper. The two pieces were tracked down in 1947 to a London antique fair but they had been sold to a man in New York. The curator of the Louvre succeeded in getting the new owner to agree to allow the table to be displayed at the Louvre and agreed that if he were to sell the roll top desk he would give them first option. In 1955 they were able to buy back the desk thanks to a benefactor. In 1961 both original pieces of furniture were back in place.
In 1979 the original footstool was purchased.
A museum in Lisbon has one of the original armchairs. Two copies were made from the original and covered with the same silk fabric.
The original firescreen was found but it was given by the owner to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
