Sale
7745
important european furniture, sculpture & clocks
9 July 2009
London, King Street
A LOUIS XVI GILTWOOD CANAPE
BY GEORGES JACOB, CIRCA 1770
The rectangular rope-twist and foliate-carved rectangular back, padded arms and seat covered in bleu marine velvet, the downswept arms with leaf-wrapped scroll terminals above husk-adorned supports and a conformingly-carved curved seat, on stiff-leaf carved spirally-fluted and tapering legs headed by rosette paterae and terminating in foliate feet, stamped 'G. IACOB' twice and 'B' five times, with a white paper label inscribed EXPOSITION INTERNATIONAL DU CADRE DU XVE AU XXE SIèCLE (AVRIL 1931) No. Hors Catalogue GALERIES GEORGES PETIT, PARIS, with a further paper label inscribed '[O?]T/1084'
40¼ in. (102 cm.) high; 83 in. (211 cm.) wide; 31½ in. (80 cm.) deep
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
(LOTS 146-156)
Sotheby's, Monaco, 21-22 June 1987, lot 1084.
Christie's, New York, 27 May 1999, lot 260, where acquired by the present owner.
Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, April 1931, Exposition Internationale du Cadre du XVè au XXè Siècle.
This beautifully-carved canapé à joues à la reine was executed by the celebrated menuisier Georges Jacob (maître in 1765) who came to be known for his outstanding craftsmanship and innovative productions, of which the present lot is no exception. The distinctively-curved accotoirs, short spirally-fluted legs and large proportions of the present lot make it an unusually grand and innovative piece worthy of the menuisier.
A closely related canapé executed by Jacob as part of a large suite, was purchased in the 1780's from the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre for the Drawing Room at Carlton House. While a comparable canapé also appears in a gouache by Jean-Baptiste Mallet (1759-1835), (now in the Musée Marmottan in Paris, see M. Jarry, Le Siège Français, Fribourg, 1973, p. 285, pl. 42), the most closely related example is perhaps the canapé supplied by Louis-Charles Carpentier (maître in 1752) for the Salon of the Prince de Condé's Petits Appartements at the Palais Bourbon in 1771-2, now in the Louvre (ill. in B.G.B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, Vol.2, pp.122-5. no.39).
Interestingly, a very closely related canapé à joues, featuring similarly-shaped accotoirs and short spirally-fluted feet, was executed by Jean-Jacques Pothier (maître in 1750) and sold Tajan, Paris, 12 June 2003, lot 105. The similarities between the latter canapé and the present lot suggest that Pothier, along with celebrated menuisiers such as Jean-Baptiste Sené and Jean-Baptiste Boulard (maîtres in 1769 and 1755, respectively), did collaborate with Jacob on commissions from their most distinghuished patrons. A suite stamped by both Pothier and Jacob which Bill Pallot dates to circa 1768-70 - of which eight fauteuils are now at the Château de Fontainebleau - brings further evidence of the occasional collaboration between the two menuisiers (L'Art du Siège au XVIIIème Siècle en France, Paris, 1987, p.193).