A LOUIS XVI CARVED GILTWOOD CANAPE BY JACOB, CIRCA 1785

The distinctive silhouette of this sofa with outward scrolling arms is inspired by the vogue for interiors à la turque in the 1780s, a fashion launched by the cabinet turc of Louis XVI's brother the Comte d'Artois in the Palais du Temple in the late 1770s, for which Jacob supplied the seat furniture. A very similar unstamped canapé is in the Louvre (ill. B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre Vol.II, Dijon 1993, n.51 p.149). A similar form also appears on a canapé supplied by Jacob after designs by the neoclassical architect and draughtsman Jean-Démosthène Dugourc for the Pavillon de Monsieur, Comte de Provence at Versailles in 1785, then being furnished for his mistress the Comtesse de Balbi (now in the Petit Trianon; ill. in P. Arrizoli-Clementel, Versailles, Furniture of the Royal Palace, Dijon 2002, no.93 p.260). Jacob  provided a similar canapé two years later as part of a suite for the Salon des Jeux of Louis XVI at the Château de Saint-Cloud, now at Versailles (ill. P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 2002, p.459 fig.b).