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Lot Essay
The chair is conceived in the French Empire fashion; while its turned legs and sphynx-monopodiae providing hermed pillars for the arms largely derive from Greek antiquity, such as the throne depicted on a marble stele in the Kerameikos Museum, Athens (G.M.A. Richter, The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, London, 1966, p.73).
The design of a related armchair and sofa in the Kunstindustrimuseum, Copenhagen has been attributed to the Danish sculptor Hermann Ernest Freund (1786-1840), both illustrated in M. Gelfer-Jørgensen, Herculanum paa Sjælland, pp. 107 and 108, fig. 96 and pl. 7. The sofa features in a drawing dated 1843 of the interior of his former home in Copenhagen (see H. Hayward, World Furniture, London, 1965, fig. 1003). A further cane-upholstered armchair of this model, of the same pattern as the latter armchair, was formerly in a collection in St. Croix, its provenance suggesting that it was exported from Denmark for a government official there (Christie's would like to thank Michael Connors for kindly supplying this information, which will appear in his forthcoming book on West Indian Furniture).
The design of a related armchair and sofa in the Kunstindustrimuseum, Copenhagen has been attributed to the Danish sculptor Hermann Ernest Freund (1786-1840), both illustrated in M. Gelfer-Jørgensen, Herculanum paa Sjælland, pp. 107 and 108, fig. 96 and pl. 7. The sofa features in a drawing dated 1843 of the interior of his former home in Copenhagen (see H. Hayward, World Furniture, London, 1965, fig. 1003). A further cane-upholstered armchair of this model, of the same pattern as the latter armchair, was formerly in a collection in St. Croix, its provenance suggesting that it was exported from Denmark for a government official there (Christie's would like to thank Michael Connors for kindly supplying this information, which will appear in his forthcoming book on West Indian Furniture).