BY GEORGES JACOB, LATE 18TH CENTURY

Georges Jacob, maître in 1765.
With their distinctive pierced fan and star-adorned backs, these elegant and refined chairs are characteristic of the goût anglais, which was based on English chair patterns such as those by George Hepplewhite (d.1786) and Thomas Sheraton (d.1806). Both these designs and the introduction of hard tropical mahogany to France, allowing for intricately-carved rather than upholstered backs, transformed chair-making in France in the 1780s. The present model is one of the most original of Jacob's pierced fan-backed chairs. A similar example in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is illustrated in G. Janneau, Les Sièges, Paris, 1967, p. 161, no. 304. A pair of identical chairs was sold, Christie’s London, 7 December 2006, lot 3 (£7200). A further identical single chair, was sold Christie’s Paris, 7-8 April 2005, lot 680 (€6600).