LATE 18TH EARLY 19TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY ALTERED

Charles de Beistegui (d.1970), the heir to a Mexican silver fortune, was one of the most celebrated society figures and taste-makers of the 20th Century, and was equally famous for his legendary parties (such as the Labia Ball in Venice in 1951) as for the extraordinary interiors he created at his many residences. He bought the château de Groussay (originally built in 1815 for the Duchesse de Charost) in 1939. Beistegui had a flair for the theatrical and in collaboration with the celebrated Cuban-born architect Emilio Terry (1890-1969), and his assistant Michel Desbrosses, designed elaborately themed rooms and garden follies in a grand neoclassical style. These charming etageres, inspired by the goût chinois of the 1780's by fashionable cabinet-makers such as Martin Carlin, were originally placed in the Salon Jaune at Groussay.