MID-18TH CENTURY

This pair of richly carved pliant, or folding stool, are the type which were employed almost exclusively for the Royal court. Their use was strictly regulated by the hierarchical dictates of court etiquette, whereby courtiers were required to be seated on stools in the presence of the King or Queen, who alone was permitted a chair with arms, emblematic of the power of the throne, a symbolic link which went back at least to the Middle Ages. Thus the inventory of Louis XIV's mobilier listed no fewer than 1,323 stools at Versailles, and the tradition extended right to the end of monarchical rule in France, as even Marie Antoinette, so keen to decorate her private apartments in the latest fashions, furnished her Grand Apartment with pliants and tabourets.
A similar giltwood pliant likely from Parma sold Christie’s, New York, 20 April 2007 also had impressed inventory marks including DC, although they didn’t lead to information on the original commission. That stool was likely made by such a Parma chairmaker after an imported example, so it is possible that this one had similar origins.