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Lot Essay
Dufour et Cie, founded 1797 by Joseph (1752-1827) and his brother Pierre Dufour (who left the company around 1800), was a French Manufacture de Papier Peints et Tissus (painted wallpaper and fabrics) located in Mâcon.
In 1805 the company employed more than 90 workers. Following the success of the company's masterpiece Sauvages de la Mer du Pacifique, after the design by Jean-Gabriel Charvet, at the Fourth Exhibition of Products of the French Industry in 1806, Joseph Dufour moved to Paris in the Faubourg Saint Antoine. His company rapidly became famous in Europe and America (the Neoclassic spirit currently in favor was accented handsomely in houses of the Federal period) not only for its panoramics but also for its repeating wallpaper. The company employed not only the talent of famous designers such as Xavier Mader and Evarist Fragonard, but also Jean Broc (1771-1850). Broc, the designer of the present wallpapers, studied under Jacques-Louis David and is well known for the cultivation of the intellectual group known as Les Primitifs or Barbus (The Bearded Ones).
The depicted scenes illustrating parts of the renowned novel Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814), first published in 1788, which tells the story of the novel's title characters are very good friends since birth and fall in love. The story is set in the island of Mauritius under French rule, then named Île de France, which the author had visited. Written on the eve of the French Revolution, the novel is hailed as Bernardin's finest work. It records the fate of a child of nature corrupted by the false, artificial sentimentality that prevailed at the time among the upper classes of France.
A similar set from the 'Paul et Virginie' series can be found in the collection of Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. Other wallpaper panels by the design of Jean Broc can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (inv. no.: E.848-1924).
In 1805 the company employed more than 90 workers. Following the success of the company's masterpiece Sauvages de la Mer du Pacifique, after the design by Jean-Gabriel Charvet, at the Fourth Exhibition of Products of the French Industry in 1806, Joseph Dufour moved to Paris in the Faubourg Saint Antoine. His company rapidly became famous in Europe and America (the Neoclassic spirit currently in favor was accented handsomely in houses of the Federal period) not only for its panoramics but also for its repeating wallpaper. The company employed not only the talent of famous designers such as Xavier Mader and Evarist Fragonard, but also Jean Broc (1771-1850). Broc, the designer of the present wallpapers, studied under Jacques-Louis David and is well known for the cultivation of the intellectual group known as Les Primitifs or Barbus (The Bearded Ones).
The depicted scenes illustrating parts of the renowned novel Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814), first published in 1788, which tells the story of the novel's title characters are very good friends since birth and fall in love. The story is set in the island of Mauritius under French rule, then named Île de France, which the author had visited. Written on the eve of the French Revolution, the novel is hailed as Bernardin's finest work. It records the fate of a child of nature corrupted by the false, artificial sentimentality that prevailed at the time among the upper classes of France.
A similar set from the 'Paul et Virginie' series can be found in the collection of Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. Other wallpaper panels by the design of Jean Broc can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (inv. no.: E.848-1924).