19TH/20TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF FRENCH WHITE PAINTED AND PARCEL GILT BERGERES
19TH/20TH CENTURY
In the Empire style, each with a rounded back and loose cushion seat covered in Scalamandré pink and cream silk, with swan-form arms on square tapering splayed legs (2)

Provenance

Acquired from Guinevere, London, 3 January, 1990.

Literature

John Taylor, 'A New York Georgian: Enhancing a Landmark Rosario Candela Apartment on the Upper East Side,' Architectural Digest, November 1991, p. 156.
Jamee Gregory, New York Apartments Private Views, Rizzoli, New York, 2004, p. 127.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Lot Essay

These bergeres are based directly on a group of four made for the boudoir of Empress Joséphine at the Palace of Saint-Cloud and are now at the Château of Malmaison. They were executed by François-Honor-Georges Jacob-Desmalter after the designs of Percier and Fontaine; a page from their Scrapbook of Sketches with the design of the armchair is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see M. Deschamps, Empire, London, 1994, p. 78 and D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le mobilier français du XIX siècle: 1795-1889, Paris, 1984, p. 335). A suite of the same chairs was also commissioned by Caroline Murat for the Silver Salon at the Palais de l'Elysèe. Additional chairs, of slightly later design but with the same prominent swans, were supplied to Queen Hortense's bedroom at the Hôtel de Beauharnais.

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