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Lot Essay
Nicolas Quinibert Foliot, maître 1776.
NICOLAS QUINIBERT FOLIOT
Amongst the greatest menuisiers of the ancien regime, Foliot (maître in 1729), the son of a maître-menuisier, was elected juré of his guild in 1750. Establishing his atelier in the rue de Cléry, he worked almost continually for the Crown and was rewarded with the title of Menuisier du Garde-Meuble du Roi. Foliot turned to his nephew, the sculpteur Toussaint Foliot, as well as Pierre Edmé Babel and Antoine Robillion for the superlative carving that distinguishes his oeuvre, and this quality is brilliantly displayed on the floral wreaths that adorn the friezes of this pair of stools, all of which are carved with different flowers, possibly emblematic of the Seasons, on each side. Although Foliot died in 1776, his widow continued to use his stamp, carrying on in the capacity as fournisseur du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne until 1784. It was probably under her supervision that these stools in the fully-developed Neoclassical taste were made.
As fournisseur du Garde-Meuble Royal, Foliot supplied seat-furniture to Versailles, the Trianon, Fontainebleau, Compiègne and Saint-Hubert amongst others, and these stools may also conceivably belong to a Royal commission. Although the indistinct brand of a closed crown and what appears to be the top half of a letter P or R has eluded research so far, the link with the Royal hunting lodge at Stupinigi and Turin, where there is an identical set of stools, may well be provided by Madame Clothilde, sister of Louis XVI, who married the King of Sardinia in 1775. Like her aunt, Madame Louise-Elizabeth de France, daughter of Louis XV and duchesse de Parme, whose refurbishment of the Palace at Colorno is well documented in her three trips back to Paris in 1749, 1752 and 1757, Madame Clothilde would also no doubt have employed French craftsmen - most obviously the fournisseur du Garde-Meuble - to provide furniture in the latest Neoclassical taste for her Royal appartements. Could the letters either side of the closed crown be for 'Casa Reale'?
The six apparently identical stools in the Royal Hunting Lodge at Stupinigi, Turin have in the past been associated with the celebrated Turinese furniture-maker Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745-1820) (L. Mallé, Stupinigi, Turin, 1968, p. 328). Bonzanigo is perhaps best known for his work for the Royal House of Savoy, who commissioned him to decorate and furnish the State Rooms of the King and Queen at both Stupinigi, as well as at the Palazzo Reale in Turin, Rivoli, Venaria and Govone.
The attribution of the Stupinigi stools to Bonzanigo is supported by a commode with remarkably similar legs from the appartments of the Duchessa d'Aosta in the Palazzo Reale, Turin (illus. G. Ferraris, Guiseppe Maria Bonzanigo, 1991, plate XX) and a pair of side tables originally in the antechamber to the Queen's State Rooms at Stupinigi, which display the same wreath-surrounded medallion suspended from the center of the apron (Ibid, plate XXXI). Two related canapes, matching a suite of stools by Bonzanigo, which originally stood in the antechamber to the King's Rooms at Stupinigi, are recorded in an inventory dated 21 October 1783 as having been painted by Michele Rapos (illus. Ibid, p. 66, fig. XVI and XVII). Both in proportion and decoration, these latter stools, which have nearly identically carved ribbon-twist aprons and panelled pattera, closely recall the current pair.
Could these stools by Foliot have perhaps been prototypes to be copied in Italy by Bonzanigo and his workshop? This is certainly what happened with the suite of seat-furniture supplied by Jean-Baptiste Tilliard to the duchesse de Parma in 1755, the basic model of which was contemporaneously copied in Parma by Nicholas Yon.
STUPINIGI
The original commission for the hunting palace at Stupinigi was given to the famed architect Filippo Juvarra (d.1736) by King Vittorio Amedio II in 1729. In spite of the King's abdication in 1730 and the architect's death in 1736, construction continued unabated and was only completed late in the reign of Charles Emanuel III (r. 1730-73). It was towards the end of this period that Bonzanigo was first employed by the di Savoia family, being appointed woodcarver to Victor-Amadeus III (r. 1773-1796) in 1787.
A set of four identical stools was sold from the Estate of the Late Guiseppe Rossi at Sotheby's London, 10 March 1999, lot 55 (£54,000). Although no stamps were mentioned in the cataloguing, interestingly one of the stools was marked XXXXVIII and other unidentified marks were noted, which may conceivably correspond with those on the present pair.
NICOLAS QUINIBERT FOLIOT
Amongst the greatest menuisiers of the ancien regime, Foliot (maître in 1729), the son of a maître-menuisier, was elected juré of his guild in 1750. Establishing his atelier in the rue de Cléry, he worked almost continually for the Crown and was rewarded with the title of Menuisier du Garde-Meuble du Roi. Foliot turned to his nephew, the sculpteur Toussaint Foliot, as well as Pierre Edmé Babel and Antoine Robillion for the superlative carving that distinguishes his oeuvre, and this quality is brilliantly displayed on the floral wreaths that adorn the friezes of this pair of stools, all of which are carved with different flowers, possibly emblematic of the Seasons, on each side. Although Foliot died in 1776, his widow continued to use his stamp, carrying on in the capacity as fournisseur du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne until 1784. It was probably under her supervision that these stools in the fully-developed Neoclassical taste were made.
As fournisseur du Garde-Meuble Royal, Foliot supplied seat-furniture to Versailles, the Trianon, Fontainebleau, Compiègne and Saint-Hubert amongst others, and these stools may also conceivably belong to a Royal commission. Although the indistinct brand of a closed crown and what appears to be the top half of a letter P or R has eluded research so far, the link with the Royal hunting lodge at Stupinigi and Turin, where there is an identical set of stools, may well be provided by Madame Clothilde, sister of Louis XVI, who married the King of Sardinia in 1775. Like her aunt, Madame Louise-Elizabeth de France, daughter of Louis XV and duchesse de Parme, whose refurbishment of the Palace at Colorno is well documented in her three trips back to Paris in 1749, 1752 and 1757, Madame Clothilde would also no doubt have employed French craftsmen - most obviously the fournisseur du Garde-Meuble - to provide furniture in the latest Neoclassical taste for her Royal appartements. Could the letters either side of the closed crown be for 'Casa Reale'?
The six apparently identical stools in the Royal Hunting Lodge at Stupinigi, Turin have in the past been associated with the celebrated Turinese furniture-maker Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745-1820) (L. Mallé, Stupinigi, Turin, 1968, p. 328). Bonzanigo is perhaps best known for his work for the Royal House of Savoy, who commissioned him to decorate and furnish the State Rooms of the King and Queen at both Stupinigi, as well as at the Palazzo Reale in Turin, Rivoli, Venaria and Govone.
The attribution of the Stupinigi stools to Bonzanigo is supported by a commode with remarkably similar legs from the appartments of the Duchessa d'Aosta in the Palazzo Reale, Turin (illus. G. Ferraris, Guiseppe Maria Bonzanigo, 1991, plate XX) and a pair of side tables originally in the antechamber to the Queen's State Rooms at Stupinigi, which display the same wreath-surrounded medallion suspended from the center of the apron (Ibid, plate XXXI). Two related canapes, matching a suite of stools by Bonzanigo, which originally stood in the antechamber to the King's Rooms at Stupinigi, are recorded in an inventory dated 21 October 1783 as having been painted by Michele Rapos (illus. Ibid, p. 66, fig. XVI and XVII). Both in proportion and decoration, these latter stools, which have nearly identically carved ribbon-twist aprons and panelled pattera, closely recall the current pair.
Could these stools by Foliot have perhaps been prototypes to be copied in Italy by Bonzanigo and his workshop? This is certainly what happened with the suite of seat-furniture supplied by Jean-Baptiste Tilliard to the duchesse de Parma in 1755, the basic model of which was contemporaneously copied in Parma by Nicholas Yon.
STUPINIGI
The original commission for the hunting palace at Stupinigi was given to the famed architect Filippo Juvarra (d.1736) by King Vittorio Amedio II in 1729. In spite of the King's abdication in 1730 and the architect's death in 1736, construction continued unabated and was only completed late in the reign of Charles Emanuel III (r. 1730-73). It was towards the end of this period that Bonzanigo was first employed by the di Savoia family, being appointed woodcarver to Victor-Amadeus III (r. 1773-1796) in 1787.
A set of four identical stools was sold from the Estate of the Late Guiseppe Rossi at Sotheby's London, 10 March 1999, lot 55 (£54,000). Although no stamps were mentioned in the cataloguing, interestingly one of the stools was marked XXXXVIII and other unidentified marks were noted, which may conceivably correspond with those on the present pair.