A Directoire mahogany chair, circa 1795, by Jacob Frères, from the Palais des Tuileries

Palais des Tuileries;

Eve, Paris, 19 December 2019, lot 777.

The trading name Jacob Frères corresponds to the partnership of the two sons of Georges Jacob (1739-1814), Georges II Jacob (1768-1803), and Georges Jacob (1770-1841). Active under this name from 1796, the workshop supplied a significant part of the furniture destined for the residences and institutions of power under the Directoire and then the Consulat.

Our chair belongs to one of the important suites commissioned from the Jacob Frères workshop for the furnishing of the national palaces. Traces of former stretchers joining the four legs, together with the inventory numbers inscribed beneath the seat, invite comparison with a chair preserved at the Mobilier national (inv. GMT 31640), part of a suite of sixty-two chairs which stood in the Palais du Directoire exécutif, now the Palais du Luxembourg, and then, in 1801, in the grand salon des séances des sénateurs at the Petit Luxembourg. Our example shares certain features with this model, notably its solid wood stretchers (now lost, though the marks they left attest to their former presence), although the back and seat have been replaced at a later date.

The delivery label on the rear seat rail, bearing the inscription Palais Impérial des Tuileries, attests to our chair's presence at the Tuileries Palace under the First Empire. The branded mark of three fleurs-de-lys surmounted by a crown, stamped on the seat, confirms that it remained in the palace collections during the Restoration.