A SET OF TWELVE LOUIS XVI MAHOGANY DINING CHAIRS
Lot 128

A SET OF TWELVE LOUIS XVI MAHOGANY DINING CHAIRS

BY GEORGES JACOB, CIRCA 1780

Closed9 April 2019

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USD 25,000

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A SET OF TWELVE LOUIS XVI MAHOGANY DINING CHAIRS
BY GEORGES JACOB, CIRCA 1780
Each with a rectangular rosette and bellflower-carved back, above a close-nailed brown padded leather seat , on stop-fluted tapering legs headed by paterae, raised on toupie feet, each stamped 'G.IACOB'

Specialist note

Georges Jacob, maître in 1765.
These solid mahogany chairs with elegantly restrained neoclassical decoration typify the fashionable goût anglais of the 1780s. They are inspired by chair patterns by influential English designers George Hepplewhite (d. 1786) and Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806). A series of letters between the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour and Directeur Général des Batiments, Jardins, Arts, Académies et Manufactures Royales from 1751-1773, and the ébéniste Pierre Garnier shed light on the taste for furniture à l'anglaise among sophisticated Parisian patrons. In his correspondence, Marigny praises the virtues of mahogany and orders a set of 36 fauteuils from Garnier, as well as other furniture of a similar style (see S. Eriksen, 'Some letters from the Marquis de Marigny to his cabinet-maker Pierre Garnier', F.H.S.J., 1972, pp. 78-85). Related chaises à l'anglaise by Jacob are illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 425, figs. A-D.