Three-seater sofa, slightly curved, with upholstered... Lot 43

Three-seater sofa, slightly curved, with upholstered cheeks, in molded wood, white relacquered, carved and gilded, with listel crosspieces decorated with a flowery medallion and leafy bases, with armrests with leafy attachments and finished in scrolls and topped with a long leaf, resting on four listel gauntlet feet, those before topped with friezes of leaves and gadroons. The amounts of the back punctuated with a line of flowers. The connecting dice are centered with a radiating medallion. Empire period. On a shaft. Possible modifications in length as the front crosspiece was partially cut and doubled, with screws and metal reinforcement brackets. H. 106,5 cm. - Length : 178 cm. - D. : 76 cm approximately. Wear, shocks, chips and some missing pieces. Furniture having a possible origin of the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, at the time of the reign of Louis BONAPARTE, King of Holland. This screen and this sofa were originally part of a living room comprising six armchairs (one reproduced below, on the left), six chairs in white lacquered wood and gilded. However, a part of another salon of the same model, unusual, composed of five armchairs and four chairs, in elm and mahogany, white lacquered and gilded, is preserved in the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, Hungary [Inv. 62.1444.1 to 5 and 62.1445.1 to 4]. These chairs are reproduced on the museum's website, and below for the armchair (right). But, like our screen and our sofa, these seats do not seem to have a stamp or storage marks. Their model is to be compared with the production of the carpenters who supplied the crown, such as François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter, Pierre-Benoit Marcion, Pierre-Gaston Brion or Pierre-Antoine Bellangé. They are dated between 1806 and 1810. These chairs are exhibited in the museum with a very long sofa [Inv. 62.1442.1] with the same decorations of listel crosspieces, decorated with flowered medallions and foliated bases, and radiating medallions, without the punctuation of flowers on the uprights, but with imposing arm brackets made of winged and gilded chimeras, resting on boxes decorated with flowered lozenges, and resting on cylindrical front legs with a gadrooned ring. The history of the notice indicates that "the white and gold furniture set presented here was probably part of the antique furniture and accessories of the Amsterdam palace of [Louis] Bonaparte, King of Holland (1806-1810). This justifies the dating of this set between 1806 and 1810. This history also states that "from the 1930s to the end of the 1940s, this ensemble was located in the Rojtokmuzsaj". That is to say in the castle of SZIDONIA in Röjtökmuzsaj, Hungary. However, an old historical note of this castle, which became a prestigious hotel at the beginning of the XXIst century, indicates that "the particularity of the living room of the first floor [of this castle] is that its furniture comes from the Amsterdam palace of King Louis BONAPARTE, brother of Napoleon. The furniture comes from the father of the Dutch mistress of the castle. After his death, it was inherited by his daughter, Elek VERSEGHI's first wife, Erzsébet JANSSEN. This is how the furniture of the former royal salon ended up in Röjtökmuzaj". In 1926, Ambassador Elek VERSEGHI and his young wife Erzsébet JANSSEN (1897-1933) bought Szidonia Castle in Röjtökmuzsaj and refurbished, modernized and refurnished it. Erzsébet JANSSEN's father was August JANSSEN (1864-1918), son of Peter Wilhelm JANSSEN (1821-1903), the famous Dutch founder of the Deli Maatschappij, together with Jacob Nienhuys, and a renowned collector and philanthropist. In 1812, on the orders of Napoleon I, part of the furniture that had furnished the royal palaces of Holland during the reign of his brother Louis, and which had been partially stored since his abdication in July 1810 in the Garde-Meuble in Amsterdam, was taken to furnish the imperial headquarters in Mainz. It would not be absurd to suppose that our salon part and that of the Budapest museum could constitute one and the same piece of furniture, comprising at least 10 chairs, 11 armchairs, 1 screen, 2 small curved sofas and 1 large straight one, taken from Holland and sent to Mainz. This furniture would have been divided at the fall of the Empire in 1814, one part returning to France when the strategic post of Mainz was abandoned and the other part remaining in the country, then acquired, in a second time, by the famous collector Peter Wilhelm JANSSEN (1821-1903). Perhaps there were more chairs and armchairs, as is often the case, and some of the seats were lost or destroyed? But, despite the examination of the inventories of the Garde-Meuble [Révolution-Empire, O2 366-783] kept at the National Archives in Pierrefitte, we have not been able to find a salon that could correspond to this ensemble. The descriptions in the inventories are too brief and imprecise, without detailed descriptions, allowing for a possible