These finely-sculpted fauteuils supported by winged lion monopodia, reflect the 'antique' influence of the excavations at Pompeii and Herculeneum, as well as Napoleon's Egyptian campaign as popularized by Baron Vivant-Denon. This new vocabulary of ornament was swiftly adopted by ornemanistes such as Charles Percier and Pierre-Frangois-Léonard Fontaine, architects and designers to Napoleon I, who issued their Recueil de Décorations Intérieures in Paris in 1801. A drawing by Charles Percier for a very similar fauteuil with rectangular incurving tablet back instead of a rounded crestrail, but on comparable lion monopodia supports, is illustrated along with a mahogany fauteuil executed after the drawing, in D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIXe Siècle 1795-1889, Paris, 1989, p. 283.

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