A very decorative pair of open armchairs of curule form, parcel-gilt and black painted to simulate patinated bronze, in the style of Jean-Joseph Chapuis.
Provenance: Madeleine Castaing, Maison de Lèves, Chartres, France.
 
Why we like it
Besides the iconic provenance, these chairs are a great example of the 19th century design, informed by classical antiquity. Decorated in the exotic 'Etruscan' style to simulate patinated bronze, with its dramatically exaggerated curves, evoking the ancient Roman 'sella curulis' - a symbol of magisterial power, this settee is truly a special example of its kind.
 
Provenance – Madeleine Castaing
This pair of armchairs were photographed in the vestibule at Maison de Lèves near Chartres - country house of the iconic French interior designer and antiques dealer Madeleine Castaing (1894–1992). Madeleine married the heir and art critic Marcellin Castaing – the legendary love of her life – who in the 1920's acquired a neoclassical gentilhommière at Lèves, that she had been admiring since her days in a convent school nearby, for her to "unwind" as he explained. The house would become one of her masterpieces as she discovered her own vocation for interior design. Extant photographs reveal a number of changes that had been made to the interiors over time. The writer Maurice Sachs once wrote about Madeleine's passion for her home: “The constant transformations she made to the estate kept her as busy as the world can keep a socialite…”. The contents of Maison de Lèves as well as Castaing's Rue Jacob gallery and the apartment above were auctioned off by Sothebys in 2004.
 
Virtually identical armchairs (painted white) were supplied by Chapuis to the Royal Palace at Laeken, near Brussels, around 1805. One of them was sold by Phillips, London, 29 April 2014, lot 305 (£31,250). Another identical chair, from the collection of Pierre Berge was sold Sotheby's Paris, 30 October 2018, lot 338 (€8,125).
 
Jean-Joseph Chapuis was an important Belgian furniture designer who was active mainly in the first half of the nineteenth century and has since become a well-known figure in studies of design history that trace the development of modernism to the turn of the nineteenth century. The present design is often cited as an important early example of the use of laminated bentwood in furniture.  Examples of this model are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (stamped Chapuis), the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Neue Sammlung, Munich and Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein.
 
Illustrated:
The Art of Interior Decoration, Hachette, London, 1962, vol. 1, p. 60.
 
Literature:
Denise LeDoux-Lebard, Le mobilier francais du XIXe sie'cle, 1795-1889: dictionnaire des e´be´nistes et des menuisiers, Paris, 1989, p. 120.
L'univers de Madeleine Castaing. Mobilier et objets d'art de sa demeure de Lèves et de sa galerie rue Jacob, Sotheby's Paris, 30 September – 1 November 2004