Lot Essay
The musical attributes carved on the seat-rail which are designed left and right, as well as the unusual height and lack of back on these stools suggest that they were used to play a musical instrument, probably the harpsichord. A variant of this type of seating accommodation, known as a tabouret de musique or chaise de clavecin, sometimes featured a low back. In March 1777, the menuisier Louis Delanois supplied une chaise de clavecin oval les pieds gaines et moulures to the Prince de Cond for 12 livres (Svend Eriksen, Louis Delanois, Paris, 1968, p. 61). The menuisier Menet appears to be unrecorded.