Many woods, crucial elements to any 18th century furnishing, made their way to Paris through the trade wave most commonly categorized as The Second Atlantic system.
It was through this trade cycle that French traders found themselves routinely in the Caribbean, Brazil and North America, building up new world empires through the mass exploitation of slave labor in order to yield raw materials and subsequently profit from the New World. It was through the harvesting of these materials that traders aimed to satiate the increasing fascination with the exotic back home, engraining something as simple as a writing desk, with a complex global fingerprint.
Click here to learn more about the various types of wood found on the Oeben Desk.
In the digitally manipulated image below, one can see a section of both the faded (left) and restored (right) marquetry patterns of the Oeben table.
