A FRENCH GILTWOOD CANAPE

This remarkable and boldly-carved canapé, as well as the chaises en suite, are embellished with superb carving of masks, medallions and foliage in a particularly sophisticated variant of the late Louis XIV Régence style. They are closely related to a pair of canapés from the collection of Sir Ivor Churchill Guest, Viscount Wimbourne at Ashby St. Ledgers, Northampton, and now in the J. Paul Getty museum, which are illustrated in G. Wilson and C. Hess, European Decorative Arts in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2001, p. 46, fig 85. One of these canapés dates from around 1700 whlist the other was executed in the second quarter of the 19th Century, when the present example was almost certainly also executed.

Stylistically the present canapé is in many ways comparable to the celebrated Mobilier Crozat (Nouvelles acquisitions du départment des Objets d'art 1985-1989, Paris, 1990, no. 67, pp. 140-142), although the scale and proportions of the latter lean more towards the early Louis XV idiom. The carving of the present canapé also relates to the oeuvre of Jules Degoullons and particularly to a console executed circa 1713 by him for the château de Bercy, which is illustrated in B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, vol. II, no. 7, pp. 40-41.