Pair of Empire Style Carved Giltwood Tub Chairs with Green Velvet Upholstery.

A Pair of Magnificent Giltwood Armchairs. Each magnificent throne chair with oval padded back encircled by an elaborate cresting carved with flowering acanthus, oak branches, and fleurs-de-lis. The top rail with two putti holding an armorial star-shaped cartouche with the interlaced L's of Louis XVIII, King of France, titled ‘Bordeaux 12 Mars 1814’, beneath a crown. This armourial cartouche is the Order of the Armband of Bordeaux. The open arms with padded armrests above exuberantly carved sculptural terminals depicting dragons with human faces. The shaped seat rail with ribbon and rocaille ornament and to the front with a star representing the Décoration du Lys. On cabriole legs. Upholstered in flower pressed blue velvet. France, Circa 1820/30. These magnificent throne chairs commemorate an important event in the Bourbon Restoration precipitating the fall of Napoleon I. They celebrate the surrender of the city of Bordeaux to royal power and to King Louis XVIII (1755-1824), heralding the fall of the first Empire (1804-1815). The Duc d'Angoulême (1775-1844), nephew of Louis XVIII and elder son of Charles X, entered the city of Bordeaux to the acclaim of the crowd on 12th March 1814. Louis XVIII later called it ‘the happiest event of my life’ and on the 29 September 1820 named the heir to his throne, not—like previous Bourbon heirs—Duc de Bretagne, or de Bourgogne, but the Duc de Bordeaux. This armourial cartouche to the top rail of these chairs is the Ordre du Brassard de Bordeaux (The Order of the Armband of Bordeaux). It was adopted for the Royal Guard and volunteers who accompanied the Duc d'Angoulême when he entered Bordeaux on 12th March 1814. It was officially called the Brassard de Bordeaux, or Brassard Vert. At first it consisted of a silk band of green with white borders, worn, as the name signifies, on the arm, but was later adapted as a medal with oval gilt sunburst on which is superimposed an oval medallion of white enamel bearing the royal monogram ‘L.L.’, and surrounded by a green enamelled band with the words ‘BORDEAUX 12 MARS 1814’. The whole is surmounted by the royal crown. In 1824 the issue of the Brassard de Bordeaux was controlled by the Royal Order of...

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