Lot 316
  • 316

A suite of Louis XVI painted seat furniture circa 1775, stamped L. C. Carpentier

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Description

  • Louis-Charles Carpentier, maître  in 1752
  • height 39 in.; width of canapé 82 1/4 in.
  • 99 cm; 209 cm
comprising four fauteuils à la reine and a canapé; the cartouche-shaped backrest carved with twisted ribbon and leaf tips, the padded armrests on leaf-carved supports, the bow-fronted seat carved to match the backrest, raised on turned tapered fluted legs; painted grey and off-white.  5 pieces.



One chair stamped on the seat rail with the numbers VII, two chairs stamped on each seat rail with the letters M P.

Provenance

The canapé, formerly in a private collection, sold, Sotheby's, New York, October 27, 2001, lot 149.

Catalogue Note

Louis-Charles Carpentier 1730-1788) had a workshop on rue de Cléry where many of the great menuisiers of the day were established.  He was a juré of his guild from 1765-67, and in 1779 he sold his stock which comprised "outils, établis, ustenciles et bois" to Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené with whom he maintained an association until the 1780s.

Carpentier had an important clientèle which included the Baron Rolin d'Ivry, the marquise de Brunoy, les ducs d'Aumont et d'Orléans, but most importantly he worked for the Prince de Condé who was furnishing his residences including the hôtel de Lassay, the Château de Chantilly, Château de Vanves, and the palais Bourbon.  Carpentier supplied seat furniture for the palais Bourbon along with Louis Delanois in collaboration with Charles Lachenait probably under the direction of the architects Bellisard and Le Carpentier.

Carpentier is particularly well-known for the seat furniture which he executed in the transitional style as with the present lot, examples of his work of this period are conserved in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in the Musée Jacquemart André, Paris, and the the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg (see, Bill G.B. Pallot, L'Art du Siège au XVIII Siècle en France, 1987, p. 302). 

The present group of five is part of a larger group; a pair of bergères in a private collection have recently come to light; another pair was sold from the collection of René Fribourg, Sotheby's, London, October 17-18, 1963, lot 808.  Another identical armchair is illustrated, C. Packer, Paris Furniture, 1956, fig. 65.