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

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).