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拍品專文
Louis Delanois, maître in 1761.
With its bold avant-garde neoclassical design and rich carving, this pair of fauteuils is a rare survival of the fabled furnishings of Madame du Barry (1743-1794), Louis XV’s last mistress, placed in her beloved château de Louveciennes. It once adorned Alphonse and Leonora de Rothschild’s hôtel Saint-Florentin in Paris, probably furnishing the salon which Alphonse had fitted with dismantled wall-paneling by Jean-Baptiste Feuillet and Joseph Métivier, also from Madame du Barry’s residences at Louveciennes.
The pair of fauteuils together with the 25 chairs en suite were precisely described in a mémoire (invoice) dated 1771 from the peintre-doreur Cagny who, last in the producing process, supplied the chairs to the comtesse:
Meubles pour le pavillon de Luciennes, pour le salon : 25 chaises dont 6 dorées. Détail d’une dorée : le dossier profilé de moulures d’architecture ornée d’entrlacs et rosaces, le milieu enrichi d’un bandeau de fleurs, branches de laurier attachées d’un ruban, guirlandes de fleurs en branches et chutes très riches, perles taillées, pommes de pin sur les coins, fleurons en feuilles d’acanthe, feuille d’eau et cul-de-soleil. La ceinture profilée de membres d’architecture ornés de 2 feuilles de refend tournantes, 1 rosace, fleurons, bouquet de fleurs avec branches de petites fleurs sur la baguette ; 1 branche d’olivier tournant autour, 1 raie de cœur en feuilles d’eau et perles ; 4 pieds carrés très riches de toutes faces, ornés de fleurons, piastres, godrons, perles et cannelures et formant chapiteau ; estimée eu égard à sa richesse 298 livre (réglée 216). […] 2 grands fauteuils en tout pareils auxdites chaises, reparés, adoucis et couchés de teinte idem, estimés à proportion de leur grandeur, chacun 180 livres (réglés 130) (B.N., Ms fr. 8158.).
Six chairs from the suite were used for the Summer season, eighteen during winter were covered with gros de Tours broché. The present pair of fauteuils, dedicated to Madame du Barry and the King, was covered à chassis (changeable upholstery) allowing to keep these in the same salon throughout the year.
This set was supplied for the Salon de compagnie of the château where they were still described in the Revolutionary inventory made in March 1793. They were later sold in 1795 together with the château de Versailles’ content.
LOUVECIENNES
First occupied by the comtesse de Toulouse (1688-1766) and then by her son the duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793), the château of Louveciennes was subsequently offered to the new favorite, Madame du Barry, on the 24 July 1769. Immediately after, du Barry commissioned a restoration by the architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel, the great exponent of the neoclassical style who extended the rather modest house and designed the new wall paneling in a few rooms such as the dining room . But the dwelling remained small, therefore the châtelaine turned to Claude-Nicholas Ledoux, then largely unknown, and asked him to design a supplementary pavilion to receive the King, conceived in the purest antique form. At Christmas 1770, the plans proposed by the architect Ledoux were agreed, and the construction of the pavillon dedicated to love started above the valley of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the famous machine de Marly. It was during this period that Madame du Barry commissioned most of the luxurious furniture for both the château and pavillon including the gueridon by Martin Carlin with Sèvres porcelain plaques now in the Louvre (in. num. OA 10658) and the extensive sets of seat furniture by Louis Delanois, carved by J.N. Guichard with painted and gilded decoration by J.B. Cagny.
Apart from this pair of fauteuils, the richest seat furnishing recorded from Madame du Barry, only a few examples from these sets have survived:
A chair from the gallery of the château de Louveciennes delivered in 1770 and subsequently in the collection of Lopez-Willshaw and later sold at Christie’s, London, 6 July 2023, lot 8; a pair of chairs supplied to the Salon du roi of Madame du Barry's pavillon at Louveciennes in 1771, subsequently in the collections of Madame de Polès and Arturo Lopez, sold at Christie’s, London, 12 December 2002, lot 15; a fire screen made for the salon carré of the pavillon de Louveciennes, 1770-71, now in the musée du Louvre (OA10219).
MADAME DU BARRY
Born Jeanne Bécu in 1746 to a modest woman living in Vaucouleurs, Madame du Barry caused a sensation in France and Europe by becoming the last mistress of Louis XV. Apprenticed in a milliner's shop, her considerable beauty attracted the attention of the Parisian beau-monde and, eventually, the adventurer and professional gambler Jean du Barry. Du Barry brought her to the attention of the ageing King, who had been without an official mistress since the death of the Marquise de Pompadour in 1764.
Louis XV became instantly besotted with the 22 year-old and was determined to install her as his maîtresse en titre at Versailles. In order to accomplish this, she was married to du Barry's older brother, comte Guillaume du Barry, who was paid off handsomely, and she was finally presented at Court on 22 April 1769. Falsely maligned for interfering in affairs of State, she rapidly became one of the most important patrons of the arts in the 1770s, making significant purchases of sumptuous porcelain-mounted furniture from the marchand-mercier Poirier, both for her appartements at Versailles and her pavilion at Louveciennes. After Louis XV's death in 1774, his grandson, Louis XVI obliged Madame du Barry to retire to Louveciennes, where she lived relatively quietly until her emigration to England and subsequent arrest on her return to Louveciennes and eventual execution at the hands of the Revolutionary government on 7 December 1793.
LOUIS DELANOIS
Louis Delanois was one of the most important menuisiers of the 1760s and 1770s, and was among the first to embrace the neo-classical style fashionable among avant-garde collectors of the time. His experimental style was developed under the influence of ornemanistes such as Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-89) who might have provided designs for the present fauteuils.
He supplied extensively to marchands-tapissiers, but also numbered among his clients members of the aristocracy with progressive taste, such as the prince de Condé or the comte Grimod d'Orsay. One of his most important commissions apart from those to Madame du Barry, was for the King of Poland in 1768-70, to whom he supplied a significant amount of seat-furniture after striking neo-classical designs by Jean-Louis Prieur (c.1725-c.1785). These included designs for chairs with medallion backs and scrolling arm-supports. These so-called 'Fauteuils oval sculpté à la Grec' first appear in Delanois’ ledger on 28 June 1768, when a large consignment was supplied to the Comte Grimod d'Orsay (S. Eriksen, Louis Delanois, Paris, 1968, p. 32 and p. 52 and S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 337 and p. 392, fig. 165 and figs. 411-414). However, Madame du Barry remained his most important patron, furnishing not only her two residences in Louveciennes but also seat furniture for the Salon de compagnie in her apartment in Versailles, where chairs from the set are still currently displayed.
With its bold avant-garde neoclassical design and rich carving, this pair of fauteuils is a rare survival of the fabled furnishings of Madame du Barry (1743-1794), Louis XV’s last mistress, placed in her beloved château de Louveciennes. It once adorned Alphonse and Leonora de Rothschild’s hôtel Saint-Florentin in Paris, probably furnishing the salon which Alphonse had fitted with dismantled wall-paneling by Jean-Baptiste Feuillet and Joseph Métivier, also from Madame du Barry’s residences at Louveciennes.
The pair of fauteuils together with the 25 chairs en suite were precisely described in a mémoire (invoice) dated 1771 from the peintre-doreur Cagny who, last in the producing process, supplied the chairs to the comtesse:
Meubles pour le pavillon de Luciennes, pour le salon : 25 chaises dont 6 dorées. Détail d’une dorée : le dossier profilé de moulures d’architecture ornée d’entrlacs et rosaces, le milieu enrichi d’un bandeau de fleurs, branches de laurier attachées d’un ruban, guirlandes de fleurs en branches et chutes très riches, perles taillées, pommes de pin sur les coins, fleurons en feuilles d’acanthe, feuille d’eau et cul-de-soleil. La ceinture profilée de membres d’architecture ornés de 2 feuilles de refend tournantes, 1 rosace, fleurons, bouquet de fleurs avec branches de petites fleurs sur la baguette ; 1 branche d’olivier tournant autour, 1 raie de cœur en feuilles d’eau et perles ; 4 pieds carrés très riches de toutes faces, ornés de fleurons, piastres, godrons, perles et cannelures et formant chapiteau ; estimée eu égard à sa richesse 298 livre (réglée 216). […] 2 grands fauteuils en tout pareils auxdites chaises, reparés, adoucis et couchés de teinte idem, estimés à proportion de leur grandeur, chacun 180 livres (réglés 130) (B.N., Ms fr. 8158.).
Six chairs from the suite were used for the Summer season, eighteen during winter were covered with gros de Tours broché. The present pair of fauteuils, dedicated to Madame du Barry and the King, was covered à chassis (changeable upholstery) allowing to keep these in the same salon throughout the year.
This set was supplied for the Salon de compagnie of the château where they were still described in the Revolutionary inventory made in March 1793. They were later sold in 1795 together with the château de Versailles’ content.
LOUVECIENNES
First occupied by the comtesse de Toulouse (1688-1766) and then by her son the duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793), the château of Louveciennes was subsequently offered to the new favorite, Madame du Barry, on the 24 July 1769. Immediately after, du Barry commissioned a restoration by the architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel, the great exponent of the neoclassical style who extended the rather modest house and designed the new wall paneling in a few rooms such as the dining room . But the dwelling remained small, therefore the châtelaine turned to Claude-Nicholas Ledoux, then largely unknown, and asked him to design a supplementary pavilion to receive the King, conceived in the purest antique form. At Christmas 1770, the plans proposed by the architect Ledoux were agreed, and the construction of the pavillon dedicated to love started above the valley of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the famous machine de Marly. It was during this period that Madame du Barry commissioned most of the luxurious furniture for both the château and pavillon including the gueridon by Martin Carlin with Sèvres porcelain plaques now in the Louvre (in. num. OA 10658) and the extensive sets of seat furniture by Louis Delanois, carved by J.N. Guichard with painted and gilded decoration by J.B. Cagny.
Apart from this pair of fauteuils, the richest seat furnishing recorded from Madame du Barry, only a few examples from these sets have survived:
A chair from the gallery of the château de Louveciennes delivered in 1770 and subsequently in the collection of Lopez-Willshaw and later sold at Christie’s, London, 6 July 2023, lot 8; a pair of chairs supplied to the Salon du roi of Madame du Barry's pavillon at Louveciennes in 1771, subsequently in the collections of Madame de Polès and Arturo Lopez, sold at Christie’s, London, 12 December 2002, lot 15; a fire screen made for the salon carré of the pavillon de Louveciennes, 1770-71, now in the musée du Louvre (OA10219).
MADAME DU BARRY
Born Jeanne Bécu in 1746 to a modest woman living in Vaucouleurs, Madame du Barry caused a sensation in France and Europe by becoming the last mistress of Louis XV. Apprenticed in a milliner's shop, her considerable beauty attracted the attention of the Parisian beau-monde and, eventually, the adventurer and professional gambler Jean du Barry. Du Barry brought her to the attention of the ageing King, who had been without an official mistress since the death of the Marquise de Pompadour in 1764.
Louis XV became instantly besotted with the 22 year-old and was determined to install her as his maîtresse en titre at Versailles. In order to accomplish this, she was married to du Barry's older brother, comte Guillaume du Barry, who was paid off handsomely, and she was finally presented at Court on 22 April 1769. Falsely maligned for interfering in affairs of State, she rapidly became one of the most important patrons of the arts in the 1770s, making significant purchases of sumptuous porcelain-mounted furniture from the marchand-mercier Poirier, both for her appartements at Versailles and her pavilion at Louveciennes. After Louis XV's death in 1774, his grandson, Louis XVI obliged Madame du Barry to retire to Louveciennes, where she lived relatively quietly until her emigration to England and subsequent arrest on her return to Louveciennes and eventual execution at the hands of the Revolutionary government on 7 December 1793.
LOUIS DELANOIS
Louis Delanois was one of the most important menuisiers of the 1760s and 1770s, and was among the first to embrace the neo-classical style fashionable among avant-garde collectors of the time. His experimental style was developed under the influence of ornemanistes such as Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-89) who might have provided designs for the present fauteuils.
He supplied extensively to marchands-tapissiers, but also numbered among his clients members of the aristocracy with progressive taste, such as the prince de Condé or the comte Grimod d'Orsay. One of his most important commissions apart from those to Madame du Barry, was for the King of Poland in 1768-70, to whom he supplied a significant amount of seat-furniture after striking neo-classical designs by Jean-Louis Prieur (c.1725-c.1785). These included designs for chairs with medallion backs and scrolling arm-supports. These so-called 'Fauteuils oval sculpté à la Grec' first appear in Delanois’ ledger on 28 June 1768, when a large consignment was supplied to the Comte Grimod d'Orsay (S. Eriksen, Louis Delanois, Paris, 1968, p. 32 and p. 52 and S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 337 and p. 392, fig. 165 and figs. 411-414). However, Madame du Barry remained his most important patron, furnishing not only her two residences in Louveciennes but also seat furniture for the Salon de compagnie in her apartment in Versailles, where chairs from the set are still currently displayed.