Live Auction 7464Un hôtel particulier du Faubourg Saint-Germain The Collection of The Marquis and Marquise de Ravenel
AN EMPIRE PARCEL-GILT AND BLACK-JAPANNED X-FRAMED OPEN ARMCHAIR
Lot 2

AN EMPIRE PARCEL-GILT AND BLACK-JAPANNED X-FRAMED OPEN ARMCHAIR

CIRCA 1800, IN THE MANNER OF JACOB DESMALTER, AFTER A DESIGN BY PERCIER AND FONTAINE

Closed22 November 2007

Price Realised

GBP 24,500

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AN EMPIRE PARCEL-GILT AND BLACK-JAPANNED X-FRAMED OPEN ARMCHAIR
CIRCA 1800, IN THE MANNER OF JACOB DESMALTER, AFTER A DESIGN BY PERCIER AND FONTAINE
Upholstered in green velvet, with a padded panelled back, arms and dished seat, within a stiff-leaf and acanthus carved frame, the legs previously damaged and now resupported, restorations and redecorated

Specialist note

The triumph of lyric poetry is celebrated by Apollo's laurels and Venus' pearls wreathing the chair's Grecian 'tablet' back, while its sphere-capped arms are raised on an 'antique' seat that signifies 'Peace and Prosperity' by a trophy of conjoined cornucopiae or 'horns of plenty'. The pattern, in 'folding stool' or 'tabouret à montants' manner derived from the Roman consular 'curule', was invented by the architect Charles Percier (d.1838), co-author with Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (d.1853) of Recueil de décorations intérieures, 1801 (see D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 283). A related mahogany version, attributed to the celebrated ébéniste François-Honoré-Georges Jacob Desmalter (d.1814), for whom Percier executed the design, is also illustrated by D. Ledoux-Lebard (ibid. p.283).