Lot Essay
These chairs, with their distinctive tambourine and crossed-fluted backs, relate to similar chairs designed by Luigi Rusca for the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg 1805-6, and which are now in the State Hermitage Museum (see A. Chenevière, Russian Furniture, the Golden Age 1780-1840, 1988, p. 180, pls. 181-183). Luigi Rusca (1758-1822) was an accomplished contemporary architect who designed several buildings in the Neoclassic style throughout St. Petersburg, including the Town Hall from 1802-1806, as well as the Horse-Guard Regiment Barracks in 1800 (see J. Schulte, St. Petersburg um 1800, 1990, p. 110, pl. 185).