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Lot Essay
As with the preceding lot, these cheval firescreens are conceived in the French manner fashionable in England at the close of the of the 18th century, as popularised by the Prince of Wales and employed at Carlton house under the direction of Henry Holland and the French emegré marchand-mercier, Dominique Daguerre. Françoise Herv/ae was one of the most skilled and stylistically distinctive cabinet makers to employ the style and whilst few records survive relating to his clientele, those which have make interesting reading as they include important patrons such as the Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth House and Earl Spencer at Althorp as well as George III at Windsor and the Prince of Wales at Carlton House. He is recorded as having supplied furniture for projects where Holland was the architect yet there is no evidence to suggest that the designs he worked to were not his own, furthermore, whilst his oeuvre is very much in the same vein as that employed by Holland it remains distinct, maintaining a more rigorous adhesion to an earlier French design vocabulary. Hervé is recorded as working at Woburn Abbey for the the 5th Duke of Bedford in 1791, under the direction of Holland, and a remarkably similar pair of fire screens attributed to Herv/ae survive in the collection there, which are undoubtedly by from the same workshop as these screens. Whilst both pairs exhibit certain clearly linked design traits, such as the oval central panel and the shaping and treatment of the legs, these screens are a refinement of the earlier Woburn design offering a slightly more spare appearance and more delicate proportions overall (G. Beard & C. Gilbert ed., Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds 1986, p.424).