A ROYAL LOUIS XVI WHITE-PAINTED BEECHWOOD BANQUETTE

This banquette is virtually identical to one sold Christie’s, Paris, 25 April 2018, lot 11. Although neither of these benches bear the stamp of a menuisier, they are most certainly the works of Nicolas Quinibert Foliot, and were delivered in the late 1780s as part of the second furnishing campaign of the château de Compiègne, where they were to be installed in the shared antichambre to the apartments of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. At this time, Foliot was contracted by the Garde-Meuble to refurnish and update the space with a set of twelve stools and ten banquettes of the same model, which were to match some existing banquettes that had been transferred from the château de Fontainebleau. As the present bench only bears the inventory mark for Compiègne and not that of Fontainebleau, it is almost certain that it was part of the group supplied by Foliot for the royal apartments. A pair of banquettes of this model stamped by Foliot and also bearing the inventory marks of the château de Compiègne was previously on the Paris art market and is now in a private American collection.