A SET OF FOUR RUSSIAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY FAUTEUILS

CIRCA 1900

细节

A SET OF FOUR RUSSIAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY FAUTEUILS
CIRCA 1900
Each with a back-scrolled padded back, arms and bowed seat covered in green silk, the panelled frame with the toprail with central patera flanked by foliate scrolls, above the arched arms on sphinx supports and the seat-rail centered by a monkey's mask, the square tapering legs headed by Mercury's mask and terminating in paw feet, each stamped in Cyrillic to the underside of the front seat-rail Cabinet-Maker to the Court with the Imperial warrant, upholstery distressed, losses to ormolu mounts (4)

展览

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Arts under Napoleon, April - July 1978, no. 168, fig. 6 (as French 1804 - 1814).

拍品专文

The Cyrillic brand to the underside of these fauteuils is that for the 'Furniture Makers by Imperial Warrant'. Very faintly stamped beneath some of them is an illegible maker's stamp.

There was a resurgence of interest in Empire furniture in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th Century. A suite of ormolu-mounted karelian birch furniture that comprised chairs, armchairs, tables and settees was for example commissioned by the Russian Imperial family around 1910 - 1912 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the victory of the Russians and the Prussians in the War of 1812 over Napoleon as well as the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty (for an example from the suite see Christie's, New York, 30 October 1996, lot 406).