Pair of French Empire-Style Ebonized and Parcel Gilt Bergeres

Early 19th century pair of Louis XVI style chairs with new upholstery in beige foliate Design fabric. Parcel paint in cream color with original gilt enhancement. Tapered and reede...

This pair has great detail in the carving each having rectangular Marble top, above central crossed torch and quiver of arrows Flanked by molded frieze, rising on fluted legs, endin...

A pair of French Louis XVI style painted wood, parcel-gilt bergères chairs from the early 20th century with soft yellow green double welt upholstery, scrolled arms, carved foliage an...

Despite his long life, very little is known about the general production of menuisier (chairmaker) Jean-Joseph Chapuis and even less about his use of bent laminates, which must be viewed as the most advanced of its kind until the appearance of Michael Thonet’s work of the 1830s. The profound reverence for the classical world in enlightened circles in early nine-teenth-century Europe and the United States often resulted in the archaeological resurrection of the art, architecture, and design of ancient Greece and Rome. No chair employing the innovative technique of bending wood more boldly expresses this allegiance to the past than this armchair painted in le style antique and based on the ancient Roman sella curulis (folding stool); With a curved toprail decorated with putti supporting a medaillion and flanked by scrolling acanthus, the arms with ball finials, above a caned seat, on curved supports terminating in foliate gilt-metal sabots. This merger of technological innovation with fashionable aesthetics parallels the work of the American Samuel Gragg...