Writing Desk, Johann Levien 1860’s
Though made in London this cabinet by Johann Levien is a legendary name in NZ cabinetry (see below). This desk is a family-owned piece in Auckland and of exceptional quality, although French in style it was clearly English and I was delighted to remove a drawer and see stencilled on the bottom:
FROM
J.M. LEVIEN
10 Davies Street
Grosvenor Square
LONDON
This work involved was a matter of removing all the ormolu and ceramic plaques then gluing down the loose veneer, replacing any missing veneer, removing the damaged finish and then repolishing with clear shellac before carefully cleaning the ormolu and reassembling, it was quite the transformation.
Johann Levien
Levien was a highly trained cabinetmaker in his native Germany. He arrived in Wellington in 1837 and set up a business in the then fledgling city of approximately 2000 people, producing a handful of highly sophisticated pieces of furniture before leaving for London where he established a luxury cabinetmaking firm catering to the aristocracy as well as set-up a business importing the exciting new NZ timbers into the UK.
He used totara for his famous entry of a massive sideboard at the 1851 exhibition in the “Crystal Palace” in London. In the late 1990’s was sold for approximately $1M and now resides in Switzerland. NZ furniture authority William Cottrell has also identified some Levien pieces from the style, timber, techniques and other materials. You can see a table he discovered which is now in the national collection at Te Papa: