Important Pair of Classical Brass Inlaid, Carved and Parcel Gilt Mahogany 'Dolphin' Klismos Side Chairs, in the manner of Charles-Honoré Lannuier, New York or Philadelphia, Circa 1820

one seat rail marked II and the other III.

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York.

Wear commensurate with age and use. Regilt. One chair lacking corner blocks beneath the seat, the other with replaced corner blocks. Each showing repair to the proper front right leg, one with the repair below the seat rail with a patch extending on the interior of the side rail, the other with a repair to the side rail.
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With their continuous seat rails, stiles and saber legs, the klismos form of these chairs is derived from antique prototypes from ancient Greece. Designs for chairs of this type were popularized in England during the Regency period by Thomas Hope in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807).  Furniture in this taste was particularly appealing to Americans emulating the democratic and republican values of ancient Greece in the new republic. Marked II and III, these two side chairs stem from a larger set of chairs incorporating the dolphin, a motif favored by furniture makers during the Classical period, particularly in New York and Philadelphia, as the symbol of Venus, the goddess of love, who was borne out of the sea and carried to land on a scallop shell, accompanied by dolphins. Represented here as visually appealing stiles, the dolphin was often rendered with a rounded bulbous head and a snub nose perhaps based upon the fantastical creatures found in classical mosaics, Minoan pottery, and French Empire furniture. Nineteenth century cabinetmakers and carvers must have considered the dolphin’s scales and flowing body a dramatic embellishment to their stately furniture.

The finely articulated dolphins on this pair of side chairs are further embellished with gilded decoration and flank a boldly carved scallop shell. The sophistication of the carving is in the manner of Charles- Honoré Lannuier (1779-1819), the New York cabinetmaker who integrated dolphins into his richly ornamented work of the 1810s.¹  These chairs could have also been made in Philadelphia, where makers such as Anthony Gabriel Quervelle (1789-1856) integrated sculptural and complicated carving of this type into his furniture forms.<sup>2

1</sup> See two card tables, three pier tables, and a bedstead illustrated in Peter Kenny, Frances Bretter, and Ulrich Leben, Honoré Lannuier, Cabinetmaker from Paris: The Life and Work of a French Ébeniste in Federal New York (New York, 1998): cat. 76, 77, fig. 92, fig. 97, fig. 91 and plate 54.
² See a pier table by Quervelle illustrated in Wendy Cooper, Classical Taste in America, 1800-1840 (New York, 1993): p. 150, fig. 107.