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Lot Essay
The bold carving decorating of this Empire sofa is characteristic of St. Petersburg chair-making of the early 19th Century. It is related to seat furniture designed for the refurbishment of Pavlovsk after a fire in 1803. Two spectacular armchairs at Pavlovsk, designed by Andrei Voronikhin (1759-1814) and made in 1804 for the Greek Hall and Maria Feodorovna's boudoir respectively, are similarly decorated with bronzed mahogany eagle-headed monopodiae front legs and the carving to the back panels shows a related pierced scrolling foliate-carved field (E. Ducamp, ed., Pavlovsk - The Collections, Paris 1993, p. 111, ill. 24, 25).
Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Leonard Fontaine were the French architects and interior designers of Napoleon I helped create the influential Empire style characterized by a severe but elegant neoclassical blend of Greco-Roman and Egyptian forms and motifs. They were involved in the decoration of interiors, walls and ceilings as well as in the design of furniture, accessories and ornament for the old royal palaces and the new residences of the Bonapartes. They published in 1798 Palais, maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome and Recueil de décorations intérierures, 1801 and 1812.
Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Leonard Fontaine were the French architects and interior designers of Napoleon I helped create the influential Empire style characterized by a severe but elegant neoclassical blend of Greco-Roman and Egyptian forms and motifs. They were involved in the decoration of interiors, walls and ceilings as well as in the design of furniture, accessories and ornament for the old royal palaces and the new residences of the Bonapartes. They published in 1798 Palais, maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome and Recueil de décorations intérierures, 1801 and 1812.