Lot Essay
Georges Jacob, maître in 1765.
This exotic stately-domed bed, designed in the Louis XVI 'antique' style, is conceived in the manner of a Turkish couch with its sideways-placed day-bed (lit de repos) frame accompanied by a small hanging canopy, centred by an imperial dome. The pattern was named a 'lit à la d'Artois' in the late 1770's, (see N. de Reyniès, Le Mobilier Domestique, vol.I, Paris, 1987, p.260) after the Pavillion de Bagatelle, which had been built for Charles-Philippe, Comte d'Artois, later King Charles X (1757-1836) in the autumn of 1777. The miniature casino was designed by François-Joseph Bélanger (d.1818) in the year that he was appointed premier architecte to the Comte, and Louis XVI's Inspecteur des Menus Plaisirs and comprised a pantheonic domed rotunda accompanied by boudoir apartments furnished with Turkish couch-beds. This bed-frame is embellished with a triumphal ornament of laurels, which link the flowered corner tablets, wreath its tapering columnar feet and form baguettes on its arched bed-ends (chevets); while rich Roman-acanthus foliage binds the Ionic columnettes with their fruiting 'thyrsus' finials, as well as the arched columnettes (montants) with composite capitals, which emerge from the back pilasters and help support the dome. This lid's pattern evolved from the 'lit à l'Italienne' published by the architect Jean Charles Delafosse (d.1789) in his Nouvelle Iconologie Historique, 1771. (See Reyniès, op.cit., p.260, fig.910).
The dome's interior is lined with tufted green lampas framed within pearled and arched quadrants bound with a ribbon-ted to a central laurel-wreath that frames a foliate boss with fruiting bud. The bed was, no doubt, intended to stand against a mirrored wall; and its arched and fringed cornice, beneath the rectangular canopy is centred by a laurel-enriched key-stone, while the spandrels, like those of the acanthus-scrolled side-brackets are carved with arabesque foliage. A poetic love-trophy surmounts the compass-centred canopy with its palm-and-acanthus enriched cornice and evokes Ovid's Loves of the Gods. The trophy comprises Venus' evergreen myrtle-sprigs accompanying a laurel-wreathed crown and helmet, with the lictor's fasces, symbolic of conjugal unity and Cupid's quiver supporting a ribbon-tied shield and sword, embelmatical of Mars' weapons being laid aside, and these are overlaid by Mercury's cochenil-headed pelta, emblazoned with the head of Apollo, leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration. The elegant design and superb quality of the bed relates to that of beds bearing the ébéniste's brand of Georges Jacob (d.1814) (now displayed at Windsor Castle and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, see F. J. B. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, London, 1960, figs. 154 and 156).
The bed's embellishment corresponds to that of a pier dressing-table (now in the Musée du Louvre), whose design has been attributed to Bélanger or his brother-in-law Jean Demosthene Dugoure (d.1825), author of an ornamental pattern book of Arabesques, 1782, and designer to the Pernon silk factory at Lyons, and who was appointed Dessinateur du Garde-Meuble. Its festive lion-footed pilasters are capped by alabastron flower-vases and sirens which support a frieze, with tablets of ribbon-bound weapons girded by pearls and flanked by the petals of Mercury, Cupid's father. The bed, no doubt originally accompanied the table, which bears Jacob's brand and was listed in the Comte d'Artois' Turkish apartments at the Palace of Versailles in the early 1780's. (See D. Alcouffe, 'Les Objets Artois au Louvre', La Folie d'Artois, Paris, 1988, p.159).
This exotic stately-domed bed, designed in the Louis XVI 'antique' style, is conceived in the manner of a Turkish couch with its sideways-placed day-bed (lit de repos) frame accompanied by a small hanging canopy, centred by an imperial dome. The pattern was named a 'lit à la d'Artois' in the late 1770's, (see N. de Reyniès, Le Mobilier Domestique, vol.I, Paris, 1987, p.260) after the Pavillion de Bagatelle, which had been built for Charles-Philippe, Comte d'Artois, later King Charles X (1757-1836) in the autumn of 1777. The miniature casino was designed by François-Joseph Bélanger (d.1818) in the year that he was appointed premier architecte to the Comte, and Louis XVI's Inspecteur des Menus Plaisirs and comprised a pantheonic domed rotunda accompanied by boudoir apartments furnished with Turkish couch-beds. This bed-frame is embellished with a triumphal ornament of laurels, which link the flowered corner tablets, wreath its tapering columnar feet and form baguettes on its arched bed-ends (chevets); while rich Roman-acanthus foliage binds the Ionic columnettes with their fruiting 'thyrsus' finials, as well as the arched columnettes (montants) with composite capitals, which emerge from the back pilasters and help support the dome. This lid's pattern evolved from the 'lit à l'Italienne' published by the architect Jean Charles Delafosse (d.1789) in his Nouvelle Iconologie Historique, 1771. (See Reyniès, op.cit., p.260, fig.910).
The dome's interior is lined with tufted green lampas framed within pearled and arched quadrants bound with a ribbon-ted to a central laurel-wreath that frames a foliate boss with fruiting bud. The bed was, no doubt, intended to stand against a mirrored wall; and its arched and fringed cornice, beneath the rectangular canopy is centred by a laurel-enriched key-stone, while the spandrels, like those of the acanthus-scrolled side-brackets are carved with arabesque foliage. A poetic love-trophy surmounts the compass-centred canopy with its palm-and-acanthus enriched cornice and evokes Ovid's Loves of the Gods. The trophy comprises Venus' evergreen myrtle-sprigs accompanying a laurel-wreathed crown and helmet, with the lictor's fasces, symbolic of conjugal unity and Cupid's quiver supporting a ribbon-tied shield and sword, embelmatical of Mars' weapons being laid aside, and these are overlaid by Mercury's cochenil-headed pelta, emblazoned with the head of Apollo, leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration. The elegant design and superb quality of the bed relates to that of beds bearing the ébéniste's brand of Georges Jacob (d.1814) (now displayed at Windsor Castle and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, see F. J. B. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, London, 1960, figs. 154 and 156).
The bed's embellishment corresponds to that of a pier dressing-table (now in the Musée du Louvre), whose design has been attributed to Bélanger or his brother-in-law Jean Demosthene Dugoure (d.1825), author of an ornamental pattern book of Arabesques, 1782, and designer to the Pernon silk factory at Lyons, and who was appointed Dessinateur du Garde-Meuble. Its festive lion-footed pilasters are capped by alabastron flower-vases and sirens which support a frieze, with tablets of ribbon-bound weapons girded by pearls and flanked by the petals of Mercury, Cupid's father. The bed, no doubt originally accompanied the table, which bears Jacob's brand and was listed in the Comte d'Artois' Turkish apartments at the Palace of Versailles in the early 1780's. (See D. Alcouffe, 'Les Objets Artois au Louvre', La Folie d'Artois, Paris, 1988, p.159).