AFTER A MODEL BY FRANÇOIS-HONORÉ-GEORGES JACOB-DESMALTER

Details

A LOUIS PHILIPPE GILTWOOD AND GILT COMPOSITION LIT DE REPOS
After a model by François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter
The out-curved headboard with turned cornucopia supports, each with an acanthus-clasped top below a swan with open wings, the sides decorated with scrolling foliage and flowers and the foot-end with similar foliage and twin conforming cornucopiae with fruit-filled tops, with red velvet headboard cover, bolster and bedspread and four bolts, with boxspring and mattress
89¾ in. (228 cm.) wide; 49¾ in. (126.5 cm.) high; 51 in. (129.5 cm.) deep

Lot Essay

This bed is identical in shape to the one supplied to the Empress Joséphine by François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter for Malmaison in 1810 (L. de Groër, Les Arts Décoratifs de 1790 à 1850, Fribourg, 1985, p. 84, fig. 137). An inventory taken upon the death of Joséphine of the contents of Malmaison lists in 1814 as item 486:

...une couchette en bois sculpté et doré, avec son estrade, couverte en drap rouge, garnie de trois matelas de laine couverts de futaine blanche...

This bed was moved to Bavaria by her son, prince Eugène. Prince Nicolas of Leuchtenberg, grandson of Eugène, gave it to Napoleon III when he visited Malmaison in 1867. (S. Grandjean, Inventaire après Décès de l'Impératrice Joséphine a Malmaison, Paris, 1964, pp. 99 and 100)

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