A DIRECTOIRE MAHOGANY FAUTEUIL

The chair is designed in the French 'Antique' manner, and with its Grecian scrolled backs and elegantly pillared legs in the Pompeian bronze fashion, relate to an armchair pattern invented for the celebrated ébéniste François-Honoré-Georges Jacob Desmalter (d.1814) 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, 1795-1889: dictionnaire des ébénistes et des menuisiers, Paris, 1989, p.283). With its compass-front, sunflowered rails and Grecian tablet cresting, it also relates to an armchair attributed to Georges Jacob's cousin Henri Jacob (d.1824), who ceased working in 1806 (see D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, 1795-1889: dictionnaire des ébénistes et des menuisiers, Paris, 1989, p.478).