Lot Essay
These elegant dining-chairs are virtually identical to the elm dining-chairs supplied by the Hague chair-maker Albert Eeltjes for rooms 76 and 126 at Palace Huis ten Bosch near The Hague in 1806. In fact, when King Lodewijk Napoleon - younger brother of the Emperor - furnished his Dutch residences in the Empire style between 1806 and 1808, Eeltjes provided most of the seat-furniture. No less than 1621 items were supplied by him to the palaces in The Hague and Amsterdam and the country seat Het Loo near Apeldoorn (J.G. Berkhout, 'De Haagse stoelenmaker Albert Eeltjes 1751-1836', Antiek 9(1974), pp. 453-466). The design for the back was conceived slightly earlier and derives from a 'parlour chair' pattern illustrated in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 3rd ed. (1793-1802). Further examples are illustrated in an anonymous watercolour executed circa 1790-1795, depicting a richly-decorated salon where an elegant group is drinking tea (C.W. Fock et. al., Het Nederlandse Interieur in Beeld 1600-1900, Zwolle, 2001, p. 332, fig. 284)