CIRCA 1800, POSSIBLY ORIGINALLY WITH A BACK

This stool is almost certainly part of a painted and gilt salon suite made for the Palais Erdödy, Budapest. A canape and four fauteuils from the suite are with Ariane Dandois, Paris and illustrated in the 2004 catalogue. The suite, which is decorated in green paint in imitation of bronze and with parcel-gilding, shares the identical X-form frame and outscrolling lion terminals of the present stool. The canape and fauteuils have the further addition of a fan-shaped padded back. According to the Ariane Dandois catalogue, Uli Printz, expert at the Dorotheum, the Viennese auction house, discovered an image of a 'magyar' console table with an identical base, dated 1810, made for the Erdödy Palace, Budapest. Erdödy Palace was the seat of Countess Anna Maria Erdödy (1778-1837), a music lover and patron of Beethoven, and her husband, Count Peter Erdödy (1771-1837), one of the richest and most powerful Hungarian families of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.