Mahogany furniture armchair with a straight rectangular... Lot 37

Mahogany furniture armchair with a straight rectangular backrest framed by two smooth ringed columns, decorated with friezes of fleurons, leaves or flutes, topped by gadrooned tops, with armrests ending in scrolls resting on two balusters ringed, gadrooned and friezed with leaves and stamens, on fluted connecting dice, and resting on four tapered legs with gadrooned shoulders, decorated in suite. On the rear crossbar : Stamp of Georges JACOB. Mark of Garde meuble A.B. with anchor, usual mark of the furniture guard of the castle of Amboise. Louis XVI period. Celadon silk upholstery. H. Height : 100,5 cm. - Width : 61,2 cm. - Depth : 75,7 cm. Reinforcing crosspiece of the seat replaced; old accidents and restorations to the attachments of the armrests to the backrest, with small missing pieces; some small cracks; chips to the crosspieces. Georges JACOB (1739-1814), received Master Cabinet Maker in Paris, in 1765. The A.B. mark with an anchor, hot-stamped on the inside of the back rail, is usually considered as the mark of the furniture storage of the Château d'Amboise, property of Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre (1725-1793), legitimate grandson of Louis XIV, Admiral of France, Governor of Brittany and Grand Veneur of France, who had bought it, along with the Chanteloup estate, from the Crown. The Crown had acquired this ensemble from the widow of Étienne-François, Duke of Choiseul (1719-1785), former minister of Louis XV, who died in ruin. As the marks of the furniture depositories of the Duke's properties often include the first and last letters of the name of the place framing the anchor of the Admiral of France (A.T. for Anet, C.P. for Chanteloup, S.X. for Sceaux), some historians read this mark as being that of the furniture depository of the Château d'Arc-en-Barrois [A.B.], which was one of the many properties of the Duke of Penthièvre. However, there are hardly any archives of this castle, rebuilt in 1845 by Adélaïde Louise d'Orléans (1777-1845), sister of Louis-Philippe, to support this hypothesis. The properties of the Duke of Penthievre were sequestered after his death during the Revolution, and the furniture in them, notably for Chanteloup and Amboise, was sold in 1797. The general shape of this armchair and the decoration of the columns, the baluster armrests and the legs, are similar to the composition of the so-called "Anglo-Chinese" armchair, in mahogany, without its geometrical openwork decoration on the front of the seat and in the center and top of the back, also delivered by Georges Jacob to the Duke of Penthièvre for his Chanteloup castle, around 1785-1790, and currently kept in a private collection (In Chanteloup, Un moment de grâce autour du du Duc de Choiseul, Exhibition at the MBA of Tours, April 7-July 8, 2007, Somogy, Éditions d'Art, p. 289)