Lot Essay
Nicolas Quininbert Foliot (d.1776) was elected maître menuisier in 1729. Appointed Menuisier du Garde-Meuble du Roi, Foliot supplied seat-furniture to both the Crown and the Court, counting the duc de Penthièvre and the Danish Ambassador at Versailles, Count Bernstorff amongst his clients. Celebrated for his richly sculptural Rococo seat-furniture, it was to his brother Toussaint (maître in 1749) that Foliot turned for his sculpture en bois. As Toussaint is known to have also worked with the Tilliard dynasty (B.Pallot, L'Art du Siège au XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1987, pp.309-10), this may well explain the extremely close stylistic affinity between the these maître-menuisiers.
The same distinctive floral-garlanded cartouche features on the console table designed by Contant d'Ivry and supplied to Count Bernstorff for his house in Copenhagen, aswell as on a canapé stamped by N.Q. Foliot from the Fribourg Collection (sold at sotheby's London, 28 June 1963, lot 193) and a fauteuil stamped by the same menuisier in the Musée Carnavalet.
This canapé was originally a canapé à oreilles, such as that supplied to the comtesse de Provence at Versailles and now in the Mobilier National (P. Verlet, Le Mobilier Royal Français, Paris, 1963, vol.4, p.138.
The same distinctive floral-garlanded cartouche features on the console table designed by Contant d'Ivry and supplied to Count Bernstorff for his house in Copenhagen, aswell as on a canapé stamped by N.Q. Foliot from the Fribourg Collection (sold at sotheby's London, 28 June 1963, lot 193) and a fauteuil stamped by the same menuisier in the Musée Carnavalet.
This canapé was originally a canapé à oreilles, such as that supplied to the comtesse de Provence at Versailles and now in the Mobilier National (P. Verlet, Le Mobilier Royal Français, Paris, 1963, vol.4, p.138.