BY GEORGES JACOB, CIRCA 1784

Georges Jacob, maître in 1765.
This superb pair of fauteuils d'angle with their distinctly angled backs designed for a specific architectural location, and their beautifully carved crowns of intertwined flowers, can be identified as part of a set of eight detailed in 'Le Mémoire des ouvrages faits et fournis pour Madame à Montreuil, sous les ordres de M. de Bard, par Jacob, menuisier en meubles, rue Meslée, 1784:

PAVILLON NEUF DU JARDIN

SALON
Huit fauteuils d'angle, en forme de tête-à-tête et en bois de noyer; cintrés en plan et en élévation; faits pour des places; les cintres sont composés de rais de coeur et de perles sur le dessus et enrichis de deux couronnes en bandeau, l'une de fleurs et l'autre de myrthe, avec deux branches de laurier nouées d'un ruban; les assemblages sont ornés de rais de coeur et feuilles d'eau au bord de la garniture; les montants sont avec des enroulements taillés de perles, feuilles d'eau et des fruits chinois au dessus; les consoles sont tournées en balustres et enrichies de feuilles de laurier, cannelures, perles enfilées et tores de cordes; les accotoirs en bateau sont entaillés dans les montants et règnant ensemble, avec une feuille d'eau sur les têtes; et sur les côtés sont des enroulements terminés par des coquelicots; les pieds tournés en balustres sont enrichis de tores de corde, feuilles de laurier, cannelures, perles; et rosaces en soleil dans les cases; à 300 livres ..... 2400
Pour les avoir faire peindre et rechampir, idem; à 30 livres .... 240

The Mémoire described the fauteuils in remarkable detail: they are in 'bois de noyer; (walnut); are 'faits pour des places' (made for a specific location) and specifically describes the cresting as having 'deux couronnes en bandeau, l'une de fleurs et l'autre de myrthe, avec deux branches de laurier nouées d'un ruban' (two crowns, one of flowers and one of myrtle): all exactly as on the fauteuils offered here. The suite also consisted of a firescreen, two fauteuils en cabriolet, three ottomanes and six chaises.
The Pavillon de Musique, designed by the architect Jean-François Chalgrin in 1784 was an elegant and refined example of court neo-classical style of the 1780s. Its octagonal salon had a series of arcaded windows interspersed with mirrored, angles pilasters, where the fauteuils d'angle were placed. The ceiling, with its exquisite stucco decor of floral festoons and ribbon-tied medallions, perfectly harmonized with the rich carving of these fauteuils. The Pavillon was designated for private use, and thus the mobilier was not inventoried as part of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, which explains the absence of any royal inventory numbers on these fauteuils d'angle.
Other fauteuils d'angle from the suite include the pair sold at Christie's, New York, 20 April 2018, lot 24; one sold from the Talleyrand collection, Christie's, Paris, 21 June 2007, lot 217 (€ 60,000); a pair sold Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 4-5 April 1933, lot 31 (possibly the present or the pair sold at Christie's New York 2018), and a further single example, but with plainer single cresting of laurel leaves (illustrated in J. Whitehead, The French Interior in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1992, p. 86).

THE COMTESSE DE PROVENCE AND JEAN-FRANCOIS CHALGRIN
Jean-François Chalgrin (1739-1811) was one of the most influential architects in the new neo-classical style and worked on such landmark buildings as the hôtel Saint-Florentin and the Eglise de Saint Philippe-du-Roule. In 1775 he was appointed premier architecte to the Comte de Provence, thus firmly establishing his position at the court. He is now perhaps most celebrated for his designs for the Arc de Triomphe, commissioned for the new regime under Napoleon. Marie-Josephine-Louise de Savoie, princess of Sardinia and of Piedmont (1753-1810), was the third child and second daughter of Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonieta of Bourbon, Infanta of Spain. Her maternal grandparents were Philip V of Spain and Elizabeth Farnese. She married Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, the Comte de Provence and the brother of Louis XVI and the future Louis XVIII of France in May 1771. The couple remained childless and Marie died at Hartwell House, the English residence of the exiled French Royal family, in 1810, a few years before her husband was restored to the throne in 1814.