Georges Jacob, maître in 1765.
This strikingly Neo-Classical suite of seat furniture, incorporating bold Ionic columnar legs fluted Corinthian columnar uprights and audaciously carved pierced splat to the canapé recalls the oeuvres of two of the foremost menusiers of this period, Georges Jacob (maître in 1765), and Jean-Baptiste Sené (maître in 1769). These celebrated menusiers dominated the market for furniture production in Paris during the last years of the Ancien Régime. Their principal clients were Louis XVI and the Queen and from 1785-1791 they provided seat furniture, beds, consoles, folding stools, footstools and screens for Fontainebleau, the Tuileries, Versailles and particularly Saint-Cloud.
The dramatically carved eagle heads to the present lot relate to a suite of seat furniture by Georges Jacob which have traditionally always been associated with Marie-Antoinette. Surviving both in bois doré and mahogany, it includes two bergères formerly in the de Ganay and then Schneider Collection, one of which is illustrated in H. Lefuel, Georges Jacob, Paris, 1923, pl. XIII. A set of eight chaises from the suite, formerly in the collection of Alexander Barker (1797-1873) and Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) was sold Provenance Revealed: Galerie Steinitz; Christie’s, London 21 September 2022, lot 27, for £327,600.
The confident carving to the legs of the present suite, modelled as stop-fluted classical columns headed by Ionic capitals also relates to a pair of console tables formerly in the Collection of the Duke of Sutherland at Stafford House, attributed to Georges Jacob. They were probably acquired by the first Duke of Sutherland between 1790-92, during his tenure as Ambassador to France; he was known at this time to have acquired pieces of Royal provenance from the château de Saint-Cloud. The Stafford pair is identical to a further pair of console tables, probably conceived en suite, sold from the Wildenstein Collection at Christie’s, London, on 14 December 2005, lot 72 for £254,500.
The suite can also be seen to relate to the celebrated group of furniture by Jean-Baptiste Sené, delivered to the château de Saint-Cloud in 1788 for Marie-Antoinette's Cabinet de Toilette and recorded in an inventory of Saint-Cloud taken in 1789. The suite comprised four fauteuils, a daybed, a bergère, a fire screen, and a footstool and incorporated the same ‘classical vocabulary, elegantly arranged’ (B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Vol. II, 1993, Dijon, p. 167) as seen in the present lot. They incorporate a similarly elegant leg modelled as an Ionic column. Part of the suite is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (acc. no. 41.205.1, 2, 3a, b).
A watercolour design for two side chairs, dating from c.1780-1790 of similar oeuvre to the present lot, was formerly in the Béhague collection and now in the Rijksmuseum (illustrated in R. Baarsen, Process: Design Drawings from the Rijksmuseum 1500-1900, 2022, Rotterdam, p. 296, no. 160.) The watercolour designs incorporate a similarly carved toprail supported by fluted pilasters, pierced oval back and delicately, yet confidently carved frame, elements of which can be seen having been skilfully manifested and brought to life in the present lot.
A set of four chaises, now in a private collection, en suite with the present lot, with pierced backs emblematic of the four arts: Painting, Music, Architecture and Drama were by repute supplied to the comte de Villoutreys de Brignac and formerly in the château de le Font-Neuve, saint Paul en Jarez in the second half of the 19th century.