Existing comment:
Jacob Freres , ca 1800
Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned this armchair, part of a suite, to project unequivocal authority and muscle. While reigning as First Consul of France, he used it in the council chamber at Malmaison, his country estate outside of Paris. Made in the Empire style after the design of tastemakers Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine, the chair's carved foliate scrolls and lion's-head mounts reference ancient Rome, and its original, gilt-trimmed wool upholstery suggests a military uniform. Napoleon believed in the symbolic power of furnishings and used them to legitimize his rise to power. After Napoleon's downfall, his brother Joseph Bonaparte brought the chair to New York, where its radical design may have influenced Americans' adaptation of the Empire style. |