French Ebonized Walnut Bookcase Restored Original Glass

The best word I can think of to describe our newest find is; Presence. This absolutely incredibly elegant Très grande Bibliotheque from Nîmes, France, simply makes the room, with its undeniable presence. Whether it’s the mammoth scale of the bookcase, or the combination of the ebonized walnut and the indescribable painted interior colour (we’re still searching for a name), something just clicked and made our antique bookcase quite special. Finding a genuine antique French bookcase, that measures roughly twelve and a half feet in length, that was not assembled from a bunch of old wood bits sitting around a guy’s workshop, is a rare occurrence. In our over 30-years of importing from Europe, we might have had two or three that were genuine. This huge antique French bookcase was fabricated from French solid walnut and certainly dates from the 1800’s. Look carefully at the wavy hand-made glass and that pretty much tells the whole story, for we are unaware that anyone produces new glass this good. Generally, when you find a bookcase, or display cabinet of this stature, you’ll discover that its history was probably from a public institution, be it a school, library, or even a high-end department store, but generally they are deathly tired. Fortunately, that was not the case with this antique French bookcase. Our antique bibliotheque was discovered in the town of Nîmes, a city in the Occitanie region of southern France. Little history; Nîmes was an important part of the Roman Empire and the city is most famous for the Arena of Nîmes, a double-tiered circa-70 A.D. amphitheater still in use today. Also, the famous Pont du Gard is located just outside of Nîmes and was an ancient 3-tier Roman aqueduct bridge constructed in the first century AD, to carry water over 30-miles to the Roman colony of Nemausus (Nîmes). Restoration of the antique bookcase required minimal structural repairs, however, cosmetically it was thoroughly restored with first ebonizing the walnut and lastly, painting (almost like a light wash of paint) the interior a soft sage colour. The best thing about this rather large antique bookcase, is the fact that it completely disassembles for ease of ingress and egress.