A South German lacquered and giltwood X-frame stool, first half 18th century

Galerie Steinitz, Paris.

G. Hojer and H. Ottomeyer, Die Möbel der Residenz München, Munich and New York, 1996, vol II, pp.211-216

C. E. Rava, La sedia, Milan, 1964, p.14.

L. Collobi Ragghianti, La sedia italiana nei secoli, Vallecchi (Fi), 1951.

The decoration of this stool is a product of the luscious, enthusiastically Rococo style of furniture in the South of Germany in the mid-eighteenth century, particularly as commissioned by the lavish House of Wittelsbach in Bavaria. While the Protestant North of Germany often showed a particular affinity with English styles, the Catholic South took an approach that was far closer to neighbouring Italian models in its tendency towards sculptural magnificence. The designer most closely associated with this style is François de Cuvilliés (1695–1768), the court decorator to Prince-Elector Charles VII and the mastermind behind Rococo fantasies like the Amalienborg in the park of Nymphenburg Palace. The furniture historian P. W. Meister particularly admired the “elegant and sophisticated” ability of Cuivillés to blend a French-trained hand with the German liberty of carving, writing that his training was “responsible for the easy freedom of [his] work, which avoids clumsy or vulgar extremes without becoming dry and academic.” (P. W. Meister, ‘Germany’, in World Furniture, ed. H. Hayward, London, 1965, p.151).

This folding stool is rather unusual within the history of German furniture, since stools in the German decorating tradition tend to be fixed in form. Folding stools themselves have a long history, and are well-documented as part of Ancient Egyptian interiors as well as the folding seat of state known as a curule chair in Ancient Rome. In a modern European context, the form is often associated with a liturgical chair used during services known as a faldstool in English, derived from the German word Faltstuhl (lit. folding stool). The practical context for this stool’s functionality is not entirely clear given the many potential meanings of the eagle, both sacred and secular, including most famously the Holy Roman Empire. It is worth noting, though, that the Rococo style was not solely employed in secular and political spaces like palaces, but also became popular for opulent sacred spaces like cathedrals.

Although the overall design of this stool is highly unusual, similar flattened ball-and-claw feet can be seen on numerous examples of German furniture such as those illustrated in H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1970, vol II, figs. 226 and 299.