A PAIR OF DIRECTOIRE MAHOGANY MARQUISES

These elegant marquises are stamped by Henri Jacob (1753-1824), maître in 1779 and cousin of the most celebrated menuisier of the 18th century, Georges Jacob. Henri's production mainly consisted in rigorously-executed mahogany seats from the Louis XVI, Directoire and Consulat periods. Several elements characteristic of Georges' oeuvre are recurrent features in Henri's production (see P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIII Siècle, Paris, 1998, p. 436). Among such, the leg à renflements godronnés headed by a sunflower patera (Ibid p. 427, figs., a, b and d, and p. 436), the accôtoirs en balustre, and idiosyncratic bamboo-like ring-turned legs.

These marquises were formerly in the collection of Monsieur de Monville. Once described by the famed dramatist Augustin Eugène Scribe, as 'The Rothschild of this time', François Nicolas Henri Racine de Monville (c.1733-1789) was Master of Royal Forestry Commission of Normandy and a close friend of Madame du Barry, Louis XV's maîtresse-en-titre. An athlete, connoisseur and homme de goût, Monville is perhaps best remembered for his enchanting Désert de Retz, a fanciful and exotic park visited on many occasions by Marie-Antoinette and said to have been the inspiration for her own folly gardens, the Queen's Hamlet at Versailles, and Queen's Dairy at Rambouillet.