BY NICOLAS HEURTAUT, CIRCA 1765-70

Details

A LATE LOUIS XVI GREY-PAINTED FAUTEUIL
BY NICOLAS HEURTAUT, CIRCA 1765-70
With oval padded back and circular seat covered in green silk damask woven with playful cherubs within a trellis arbor and with lion masks, the seat with panthers, the oval back with upspringing acanthus shoulders and guilloche and channelled frame, supported by acanthus to the base, the scrolled arms with greek-key terminals above a guilloche panelled seat-rail with central foliate spray and on block rosette-headed turned tapering stop-fluted legs with stiff-leaf toupie feet, stamped three times 'N.HEURTAUT', apparently retaining original webbing and decoration, inscribed in blue chalk '4581'

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Nicolas Heurtaut, maître in 1753.

Designed in the progressive early neo-classical taste of the 1760s, this fauteuil represents Heurtaut's mature style, sophistication of line and characteristic quality of sculpture. Bill Pallot, in The Art of the Chair in 18th Century France, Paris, 1987, pp. 254-255 reveals that Heurtaut's principal clients at this date were Nicolas de Boullogne, M. Chabenat de Bonneuil, the marquis de Genlis and the duchesse d'Enville at the château de la La Roche-Guyon. A set of six fauteuils and a canapé by Heurtaut from La Roche-Guyon, executed at this date, is now in the Louvre and illustrated in B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, vol. II, Dijon, 1993, pp. 110-113, no. 36.

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