Lot Essay
With their curved medallion backs, distinctive laurel garlands and mille raie cabriole legs, these cabrioletstoelen represent the brief transitional phase in the development of the French current in Dutch furniture-making. They recall the ardent fashion for French furniture in Holland in the 18th Century and the subsequent reaction on the side of Dutch chair-makers to imitate the sought-after French models. French chairs were probably already imported on a large scale in the 1730s - much earlier than French ébénisterie - which immediately motivated Dutch chair-makers to produce imitations. Additionally, chair-makers working in this style referred to themselves as `French chair-makers'. The first to do so was probably Jan Emans (active before 1737-1760), who already promoted himself as such in an advertisement in the Amsterdamse Courant on 9 May 1737. (R.J. Baarsen, `French furniture in Amsterdam ni 1771', Furniture History 29 (1993), p. 168 and note 24)
The imitations in painted or gilded softwood are particularly convincing and are hard to distinguish from `real' French chairs, such as a pair of bergères in Amerongen Castle, which were made by The Hague chair-maker Adam Struys (1721-1782) to complete a set of giltwood seat-furniture by Jean-Baptiste Lelarge (1743-1802). (Th.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, `Amerongen Castle and its furniture', Apollo 80 (1964), p. 364)
Mahogany chairs in the French style are less slavish copies than the above-mentioned examples and would subsequently not be mistaken for French work. These chairs were nonetheless still described as `French'. Even when the Haarlem chair-maker Petrus Josephus Honoré supplied the Regents' Chamber in Teylers Hofje with a set of eighteen mahogany chairs in 1789, which are French-inspired to a certain extent but still unmistakably Dutch, he submitted an invoice which describes them as `mahogany French chairs, made entirely in the Antique style with Hollow backs and curved seats'. (J.R. ter Molen, `De regentenvertrekken in Teylers Hofje te Haarlem, Antiek 15 (1980-1981), p. 320 and p. 338)
See illustration
The imitations in painted or gilded softwood are particularly convincing and are hard to distinguish from `real' French chairs, such as a pair of bergères in Amerongen Castle, which were made by The Hague chair-maker Adam Struys (1721-1782) to complete a set of giltwood seat-furniture by Jean-Baptiste Lelarge (1743-1802). (Th.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, `Amerongen Castle and its furniture', Apollo 80 (1964), p. 364)
Mahogany chairs in the French style are less slavish copies than the above-mentioned examples and would subsequently not be mistaken for French work. These chairs were nonetheless still described as `French'. Even when the Haarlem chair-maker Petrus Josephus Honoré supplied the Regents' Chamber in Teylers Hofje with a set of eighteen mahogany chairs in 1789, which are French-inspired to a certain extent but still unmistakably Dutch, he submitted an invoice which describes them as `mahogany French chairs, made entirely in the Antique style with Hollow backs and curved seats'. (J.R. ter Molen, `De regentenvertrekken in Teylers Hofje te Haarlem, Antiek 15 (1980-1981), p. 320 and p. 338)
See illustration