A PAIR OF NAPOLEON III ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY FAUTEUILS DE BUREAU THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

细节

A PAIR OF NAPOLEON III ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY FAUTEUILS DE BUREAU THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Each with overscroll crest and incurved shaped back above a bowed seat, one upholstered in burgundy cut velvet embroidered with Napoleonic bees, the other in dark brown leather, above a panelled seat rail mounted with paterae, on circular tapering legs headed by scrolling voluted anthemion, on leaftip-cast paw feet, the back centrally fitted with a putto bearing a beehive within berried laurel and rope-twist banding issuing berried scrolling foliage, each with a paper label inscribed in ink 'Empire chair from Fontainbleau [sic] from room altered under Thiers sold by French government' (2)

拍品专文

This pair of richly mounted fauteuils de bureau are based on the famous chair supplied by Jacob-Desmalter et Cie and with mounts by Thomire, c. 1805 to Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, and brother of Napoleon. This passed into the collection of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte before being sold from the collection of Comte Philippe de La Rochefoucauld, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 19 May 1951, lot 160. The form is based on antique Roman prototypes for throne chairs as popularized through the designs of Percier and Fontaine in their Récueil de Décoration Interieurs (1812), where similar chairs are illustrated, plate 39. Other chairs of this model were sold Christie's London, 18 June 1987, lot 318, and in these Rooms, 25 January 1992, lot 289.