A SET OF EIGHT EMPIRE CARVED MAHOGANY FAUTEUILS

Description:

Jacob Frères (attr.), Paris, ca. 1800
H. 92 cm
Each with padded back arms and seat covered in red cut velvet, the akanthus carved arms supported by Sphinx shaped legs ending in paw feet. Traces of age. Worn.
From an important German private Collection.
The sculpture of these chairs is admirable for its quality of the detailed sfinx symbolic. If the Directoire and the Consulate period made Etruscan-style chairs fashionable, with square tapering feet ending in lion paws, the Jacob Brothers distinguished themselves by the quality of their sculptures, which precisely reproduce the bone structure and musculature and even the "pads" under the feet.
Lit. E. Dumothier, Bois de Siège, p. 70, EPA 59; G. Jeanneau, Le Mobilier Francais, Les Sieges, no. 352.; Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Francais du XIXme Siècle, p. 269.