A Fine Pair of Louis XV Giltwood Fauteuils à la Reine circa 1765, stamped L. Delanois

each with a cartouche-shaped backrest carved with flowerheads and leaf tips, the padded armrests raised on voluted supports, the serpentine-fronted drop-in seat raised on cabriole legs, carved at the knees with flowerheads ending in scrolled toes, upholstered à chassis.

Louis Delanois (1731-1792) received his maîtrise in 1761 when the nascent 'neo-grec' fashion was emerging.  His early work is in the fully developed Louis XV style but he was quick to adopt the neoclassical forms and produced seat furniture in the transitional style, and towards the end of his career he was working in the fully developed Louis XVI style.  He was one of the few leading Parisian menuisiers to successfully span these decades, and to successfully interpret the prevailing fashions.  Delanois had a distinguished clientèle which included the Comte d'Artois, the ducs de Bourbon, de Chartres, d'Enghien et de Praslin, the Prince de Beauvau and the Comtesse de Choiseul.  For a full discussion of the life of Louis Delanois, see, S. Eriksen, Louis Delanois Menuisier en Sièges, Paris, 1968.

The molded voluted armrest supports on the present lot are repeatedly used by Delanois on his Louis XV seat furniture; the rather flat molded borders around the seat seem to appear on his work c. 1765, as on an armchair formerly with Seligmann, Paris, illustrated, Eriksen, op.cit. pl. XIII, see also an armchair in the Niarchos collection, illustrated, ibid. pl. XVI.