Louis XVI's library, laid out in 1774 to accommodate the finest books in the Versailles collections, was one of the last commissions undertaken by the architect Jacques-Ange-Gabriel who employed the talents of the sculptors Jules-Antoine Rousseau and his two sons, Jules-Hugues and Jean-Simeon. The chimney-piece sculpted by Louis-Simon Boizot and decorated with gilded bronzes by Pierre Gouthiere had been commissioned two years earlier for Madame Du Barry's reception room at Fontainebleau. Louis XVI, a keen enthusiast for the exact sciences, soon gathered together in this room mechanical and technical curiosities illustrative of his interests. The furniture was harmoniously selected with, in particular, from 1784, a chest of drawers by Riesener that had been made six years earlier for the king at Fontainebleau. This was the most outstanding example of a limited series designed for the royal family furniture and which had been made between 1771 and 1773 under the watchful eye of Pierrre-Elisabeth de Fontanieu, Superintendent of the Crown Furniture Depository and a discerning connoisseur. The chest of drawers, which had been sold off under the Revolution, belonged in the late 19th century to the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family from whom it was confiscated following Anschluss. Handed back to the Rothschild heirs by the Austrian government and put up for auction, it finally returned to Versailles through the good offices of the Ministere de la Culture and the Etablissement Public de Versailles, and thanks to generous financial backing from the Versailles Foundation, the Societe Des Amis de Versailles, and Madame Francois Pinault.
