Although the Savonnerie workshops are most renowned for the magnificent carpets produced during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, the factory also produced other forms of furnishing fabrics in the woven-pile technique. These objects included upholstery for furniture, panels for fire-screens, panels for room screens and, in at least one instance, coverings for a small casket, see Pierre Verlet, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Savonnerie, London, 1982, p. 86. It must be noted, however, that these other products are extremely rare, even within the already rare group of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Savonnerie carpets, as the production at the Savonnerie was mainly devoted to the weaving of carpets.

Despite the popularity of furnishing silk woven at Lyons or Paris and tapestry-woven covers from Beauvais or Gobelins, there was a demand for a more durable material to furnish benches and tabourets for royal anterooms (ibid., p. 84) and the Savonnerie with its sturdy pile weavings met this demand. Although covers for 710 tabourets and 531 benches were woven between 1686 and 1791, very few remain extant, probably due to their regular use, and the practice of replacing covers upon signs of fading or sufficient wear.

The ten different patterns for Savonnerie bench-covers are listed and described in Verlet, op. cit., pp. 293-295. The panel covering this stool is from a bench-cover, the fourth pattern, which was woven from 1704 onwards. The design is attributed to Belin de Fontenay, the Elder. Known for his depiction of flowers in Savonnerie weavings, Fontenay is thought to be the originator of the rose Moresque design element found on this example and other Savonnerie weavings from this period, see op. cit., p. 297. A more complete Savonnerie bench-cover of this design is in the Musée du Louvre, see op. cit., p. 329, fig. 202. Furniture with Savonnerie upholstery of this design include a bench sold Christie’s, New York, 18 October 2002, lot 352; a pair of Louis XVI style benches sold Christie’s, Paris, 26 May 2020, lot 140; and one sold most recently from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John H. Gutfreund, Christie’s, New York, 26-27 January, 2021, lot 88.