Lot 180
A LOUIS XVI WHITE-PAINTED ARMCHAIR
BY JEAN-BAPTISTE BOULARD, CIRCA 1785
Closed29 April 2010
Price Realised
GBP 6,000
More Information
Specialist note
This elegant fauteuil by Jean-Baptiste Boulard (maître in 1755) is branded with the crowned F for the château de Fontainebleau followed by '733/0/6' and further inscribed 'pour le grand cabinet du Ministre a fontainebleau'. The latter inscription corresponds to the grand cabinet of Louis Charles Auguste le Tonnelier, baron de Breteuil, baron de Preuilly (7 March 1730 - 2 November 1807).
Breteuil, a French aristocrat, diplomat and politician, was appointed ministre et secrétaire d'Etat de la Maison du Roi (or Minister of the King's Household) in 1783 before becoming premier ministre in 1789, only 2 days before the storming of the Bastille.
Boulard, who worked almost exclusively for the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne from 1777, supplied a plethora of seats to the Crown at Versailles, the Tuileries, Fontainebleau and Saint-Cloud, receiving a significant number of Royal commissions for Fontainebleau between 1784 and 1789. The present fauteuil can be related to three further examples supplied by the menuisier for the service de M. le Baron de Breteuil under the numéro d'ordre 384 of 22 September 1785 and described as '3 fauteuils meublants aussi cintrés pareils à un modèle pris dans le magasin, 15 livres pièce' (Ibid, p. 254). Interestingly, it is under the same number, the numéro 733 des meubles d'étoffe that six fauteuils, including two à carreaux and covered with damas des Indes are recorded in the cabinet du ministre (Ibid, p. 255).
Breteuil, a French aristocrat, diplomat and politician, was appointed ministre et secrétaire d'Etat de la Maison du Roi (or Minister of the King's Household) in 1783 before becoming premier ministre in 1789, only 2 days before the storming of the Bastille.
Boulard, who worked almost exclusively for the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne from 1777, supplied a plethora of seats to the Crown at Versailles, the Tuileries, Fontainebleau and Saint-Cloud, receiving a significant number of Royal commissions for Fontainebleau between 1784 and 1789. The present fauteuil can be related to three further examples supplied by the menuisier for the service de M. le Baron de Breteuil under the numéro d'ordre 384 of 22 September 1785 and described as '3 fauteuils meublants aussi cintrés pareils à un modèle pris dans le magasin, 15 livres pièce' (Ibid, p. 254). Interestingly, it is under the same number, the numéro 733 des meubles d'étoffe that six fauteuils, including two à carreaux and covered with damas des Indes are recorded in the cabinet du ministre (Ibid, p. 255).