BY JEAN AVISSE, CIRCA 1750

Jean Avisse, maître in 1745.

Jean Avisse was born in 1723 and related to the Gourdin family, a dynasty of renowned carpenters; he became master in 1745 and moved to rue de Cléry in 1747. He initially supplied a select group of tapestry makers and marchands-merciers including Blin, Bouguereau, Lacoursière, Jalouret, the Lrin family and Pousse, before beginning to work exclusively for notable private clients such as the Marquise de Chabannes, the Comtesse de Fontenay and the Chevalier de Lamotte.

Avisse's work is characterized by its ample forms and subtly curved legs, demonstrating an outstanding sense of design and proportion to produce some of the finest Rococo seat furniture of the eighteenth century. Because sculpture was carried out by seat sculptors—a separate guild from menuisiers—Jean Avisse surrounded himself with highly skilled woodcarvers such as Jean-François Baillard, Claude Vinache and Pierre Rousseau. Bill G. B. Pallot, in his monograph L'Art du siège au XVIIIe siège en France, Paris, 1987, p. 300, points out that, like Michel Avisse, Jean delegated the carving of his chairs to the talented Nicolas Heurtaut, who distinguished himself by producing "the most abundantly carved works [which] are always masterpieces of execution, with very detailed carving and unusual motifs.”