BY JEAN-BAPTISTE LELARGE, CIRCA 1770

Details

A MASSIVE LOUIS XVI GREY-PAINTED CANAPE
BY JEAN-BAPTISTE LELARGE, CIRCA 1770
Of unusually large size, made in two sections, with rectangular padded back in moulded frame, with padded scroll sides and seat on short circular fluted legs, upholstered in yellow and white striped quilted silk, stamped I B LELARGE to underside
34 in. (86.5 cm.) high, 156 in. (396.5 cm.) wide, 38 in. (96.5 cm.) deep, overall
Jean-Baptiste III Lelarge, maître in 1775.

Provenance

Château de Saint Cloud (by repute).
With Mlle Rémy, Paris.
Vicomtesse Dale de Bonchamps, 42 Avenue Foch, Paris.
Hubert de Givenchy, Paris.
Acquired from Steinitz, Paris, January 1985.

Literature

P. Arrizoli-Clémentel, Georges Geffroy, Paris, 2016, p. 108 (illustrated in situ in the antichambre-galerie of the Bonchamps residence at 42 Avenue Foch).

Special notice

Please note this lot will be moved to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn) at 5pm on the last day of the sale. Lots may not be collected during the day of their move to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services. Please consult the Lot Collection Notice for collection information. This sheet is available from the Bidder Registration staff, Purchaser Payments or the Packing Desk and will be sent with your invoice.

Sale room notice

Please note this canapé is branded to the reverse ‘SC GM’. This brand is thought to be that of the Garde Meuble of Louis Philippe, Duc d’Orléans (1747-1793) at the Château de Saint Cloud, before he sold the château in 1785 to Louis XVI. A pair of bergères with the same brand, also by Lelarge and with the same brand and formerly in the Wrightsman Collection, is illustrated F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Greenwich, 1966, vol. I, cat. 28 A-B, pp. 39-40.
Please note this canapé might not originally have been conceived in two sections and may therefore possibly have been modified.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Jonathan Rendell

jrendell@christies.com +1 212 636 2283

Lot Essay

Vicomtesse Dale de Bonchamps
Similarly to the preceding lot in this sale, this canapé was formerly in the collection of the Vicomtesse de Bonchamps. Raised in San Francisco, Dale King became Vicomtesse de Bonchamps following her marriage in 1954 to Guillaume de Bonchamps (1905-1985), a descendant of the celebrated general of the Revolutionary period Charles de Bonchamps (1760-1793). Dale de Bonchamps was a dazzling society figure and patron of the arts, donating equally to the de Young Museum of San Francisco and the Château de Versailles. She famously arrived at Baron de Redé’s Bal Oriental at the Hôtel Lambert in 1969 dressed in a metal pagoda which made it impossible for her to sit down. The Bonchamps apartment on 42 Avenue Foch was an iconic creation of one of the most influential and sought after interior designers of the post war years in Paris, Georges Geffroy. This canapé of extraordinary scale formed the centerpiece of the antichambre-galerie, the walls of which were decorated in faux marble that were dramatically set off by two soaring columns designed by Geffroy.

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