Lot Essay
The generous proportions and early Neo-classical shape of this suite relates to a design by Jean-Louis Prieur, dated 1766, executed as a proposal for the decoration of the Royal Palace in Warsaw (T. Clemmensen, Møobler, Copenhagen, 1973, p. 71, fig. 30). Designs like this inspired ébénistes throughout Europe. This suite closely relates to works by the Danish architect and designer Caspar Frederick Harsdorff (d. 1799). After receiving the Gold Medal in a competition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he spent several years on a stipend in Paris (1757-62), studying works by Le Lorrain, designer of the celebrated suite for Lalive de Jully of 1756-57, and of Jean François de Neufforge, acknowledged as one of the first to adopt Neo-classicism and author of the Recueil élémentaire d'architecture published between 1757 and 1768. The similarity of these chairs with his work is reflected in a mirror, with a similar concept of egg-and-dart borders in combination with various swags and a swagged urn, acquired between 1774 and 1775 for Fredensborg (op.cit., plate 58). The rare combination of oak with parcel-gilding on robustly carved sections appears on a writing-table which appears in the Danish Royal inventories in the 1770s and is attributed to Harsdorff (op.cit., plate 76-77).
The suspended laurel swags, as well as the applied decoration on the seat-rail further relate to a suite of seat-furniture of 1774 by Blathasar Herrmann in the Residenz, Würzburg (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1973, vol. III, fig. 211).
The suspended laurel swags, as well as the applied decoration on the seat-rail further relate to a suite of seat-furniture of 1774 by Blathasar Herrmann in the Residenz, Würzburg (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1973, vol. III, fig. 211).