A SET OF NINE FRENCH RED AND CREAM-DECORATED BERGERES

ONE LATE LOUIS XV, CIRCA 1765, EIGHT OF A LATER DATE

Details

A SET OF NINE FRENCH RED AND CREAM-DECORATED BERGERES
One late Louis XV, circa 1765, eight of a later date
Each with tub-form backs carved with berried leaf swags, the outside carved with flowerhead trellis above a serpentine seat, the shaped seatrail centering a panelled flowerhead and guilloche panels, on turned tapering fluted legs with ring-turned toupie feet, with pink silk-covered cushions, traces of earlier green decoration, three of the eight later bergeres late 19th century and stamped Made in France, five of a later date
42in. (16cm.) high, the seat, 19in. (50cm.) wide, the seat, 17in. (43cm.) deep, the seat, 30in. (78cm.) high, the frame (9)

Provenance

Supplied circa 1927-30 by Elsie de Wolfe for the New York apartment of Cond Nast, the owner of Vogue magazine

Literature

Josephine Ross, Society in Vogue, New York, 1992, p. 127, illustrated

Lot Essay

These remarkable tub-shaped bergeres, with their stylish use of a flower-filled trellis combined with bold husk swags, were supplied in the late 1920's by the legendary interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe for the terrace of the Park Avenue penthouse of Vogue's proprietor, Cond Nast. Their bold neo-classical design, with a rich flower-filled trellis and husk swags, relates to designs for chairs by the influential got grec designer Jean-Franois de Neufforge (illustrated in B.G.B. Pallot, L'Art du Sige Au XVIIIe siecle en France, Paris, 1987, p. 172).

Elsie de Wolfe (1865-1950) was one of the most celebrated and innovative personalities in the field of interior design, and indeed was America's first female interior decorator, who early in her career pronounced that 'I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life'. An intimate of the Duchess of Windsor, her dazzling array of clients included Anne Vanderbilt and Henry Clay Frick (whose Fifth Avenue townhouse she decorated). The Cond Nast commission was one of her most celebrated decorating projects, and its daring combination of modern decorations and 18th century furniture with rich chinoiserie and floral wall treatments typified her ebullient approach. As a 1929 Vogue article on her own New York apartment remarked 'Throughout, old things have been used in the modern manner-a paradox that is extremely effective'.

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