A PAIR OF EMPIRE WHITE-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT FAUTEUILS

Part of a larger suite of seat furniture, these fauteuils were delivered by Brion to the Imperial Garde-Meuble. A pair of identical fauteuils from this set with the inventory numbers TU 932, 43696 and IG 1744 was sold Sotheby’s, New York, 27 October 1990, lot 107. These armchairs have sequential inventory numbers as the pair of chairs from the same suite that were stenciled TU 933, IG 1745 and 43697 that sold Sotheby’s, New York, 3 June 2008, lot 193. For a single fauteuil from this set, but lacking its cresting, formerly with Didier Aaron, Paris, see Christophe Huchet de Quenetain, Le Styles Consulat et Empire, Paris, 2005, p. 100, fig. 69.
Pierre-Gaston Brion, a menuisier-sculpteur, collaborated on a number of projects with the cabinet-maker Molitor and to the tapissier Leroy, but is chiefly known for the seat furniture ordered by Napoleon and supplied to the Garde-Meuble Impérial in December 1811. Besides the Tuileries, he delivered furniture for a number of Imperial residences, including the Grand Trianon at Versailles, the Louvre, as well as the châteaux of Pau and Fontainebleau. Brion continued to deliver furniture for the court after the Bourbon restoration. Such commission was that for twelve chairs in 1824 for the use of the Duchesse de Berry at the Tuileries. His most important work for the royal court was perhaps the celebrated lit de parade he executed for Charles X, now in the Musée du Louvre (inv. OA 10278).