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Lot Essay
This chair is almost certainly part of the celebrated and very large suite of seat-furniture made for Napoleon I’s uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839), probably for his Roman embassy, the Palazzo del Buffalo-Ferraioli in the Piazza Colonna. From a design of circa 1806 by Dionisio Santi (b. 1784-86) and/or Lorenzo Santi (1783-1839), as published in the former’s Modèles de Meubles (1828), the suite consisted of at least ninety-six pieces, most of which were recorded in an inventory dated 1815 of Fesch’s Parisian hôtel Hocquart de Montfermeil. The suite comprised chaises, fauteuils, canapes and causeuses. In this number but not described separately there were at least three stylistic variations: a suite with arched pediments; another suite with triangular pediments; and an ‘acanthus-tailed griffin suite’ (L. Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, vol. II, New Haven and London, 2009, p. 744). While many of the chairs from the suite bear chiselled Roman numerals, others including the present example, and as identified in Lucy Wood’s comprehensive study, do not (ibid., pp. 738-756).
A portion of this furniture was subsequently sold in the sale of Fesch’s Parisian house, 17 June 1816 and following days, lots 444-446, while the balance possibly remained at Fesch’s archiepiscopal residence at Lyon. Fourteen pieces were bequeathed to Fesch’s home town of Ajaccio, Corsica, and a large part was inherited by his principal heir, Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and comte de Survilliers (1768-1844); this was later acquired by Prince Anatole Demidoff for the Villa San Donato, outside Florence, illustrated in two watercolours by Fortuné de Fourrier, dated 1841, of the salle de Bal. The San Donato sale, held by Charles Pillet et al., 15 March 1880 and following days, included sixty-one pieces from this suite, and marked the date of its wide dispersal.
Intriguingly, some of the chairs were sold prior to the San Donato sale, anonymously at Phillips, London, 11 July 1821, lots 81-84; these included ’12 single fauteuils’ together with six bergeres although the lot description prohibits identification of their pediment type. William Beckford possibly purchased his set of Fesch seat-furniture (with triangular pediments) from the Phillips 1821 sale (illustrated in John Rutter’s Delineations of Fonthill, 1822, sold in the Phillips 1823 Fonthill sale, ‘The Grand (Damask) Drawing Room’, probably lots 1534-1540, to the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, ed. D.E. Ostergard, William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, New Haven and London, 2001, p. 432, no. 53).
Today, examples, probably from the San Donato sale, are in the following collections: the château de Malmaison, the Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight; Philadelphia Museum of Art, the James Monroe Memorial Library, Frederiksburg, Virginina; Dalva Brothers, New York; and two private collections. Interestingly, two chairs with arched pediments now in the Lady Lever collection were formerly in the collection of Sir William Quiller Orchardson who used them as studio props for his historical costume paintings in the 1890s, and omitted the pediments in at least one of his works, The Rivals (1895), presumably because it was more aesthetically pleasing, now in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery.
A portion of this furniture was subsequently sold in the sale of Fesch’s Parisian house, 17 June 1816 and following days, lots 444-446, while the balance possibly remained at Fesch’s archiepiscopal residence at Lyon. Fourteen pieces were bequeathed to Fesch’s home town of Ajaccio, Corsica, and a large part was inherited by his principal heir, Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and comte de Survilliers (1768-1844); this was later acquired by Prince Anatole Demidoff for the Villa San Donato, outside Florence, illustrated in two watercolours by Fortuné de Fourrier, dated 1841, of the salle de Bal. The San Donato sale, held by Charles Pillet et al., 15 March 1880 and following days, included sixty-one pieces from this suite, and marked the date of its wide dispersal.
Intriguingly, some of the chairs were sold prior to the San Donato sale, anonymously at Phillips, London, 11 July 1821, lots 81-84; these included ’12 single fauteuils’ together with six bergeres although the lot description prohibits identification of their pediment type. William Beckford possibly purchased his set of Fesch seat-furniture (with triangular pediments) from the Phillips 1821 sale (illustrated in John Rutter’s Delineations of Fonthill, 1822, sold in the Phillips 1823 Fonthill sale, ‘The Grand (Damask) Drawing Room’, probably lots 1534-1540, to the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, ed. D.E. Ostergard, William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, New Haven and London, 2001, p. 432, no. 53).
Today, examples, probably from the San Donato sale, are in the following collections: the château de Malmaison, the Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight; Philadelphia Museum of Art, the James Monroe Memorial Library, Frederiksburg, Virginina; Dalva Brothers, New York; and two private collections. Interestingly, two chairs with arched pediments now in the Lady Lever collection were formerly in the collection of Sir William Quiller Orchardson who used them as studio props for his historical costume paintings in the 1890s, and omitted the pediments in at least one of his works, The Rivals (1895), presumably because it was more aesthetically pleasing, now in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery.