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Lot Essay
In preparation for the marriage of the royal enfants of France, costly and extensive sets of furniture were commissioned to adorn their apartments in the château de Versailles. These pliants were commissioned for the chambre à coucher of Marie-Therese de Savoie, who in 1773 married Louis XVI’s youngest brother the comte d’Artois. They are virtually identical, with the exception of minor details to the carving, to the seventy-two X-shaped pliants executed by Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot (d. 1776) three years previously for the Chambre and Cabinet of Marie-Antoinette, Madame la future Dauphine on her marriage to the dauphin (the future Louis XVI) in 1770. The present example resurfaced only recently in the United States; many other pliants from both sets were retained at the château de Versailles and are currently displayed in the Chambre of Marie-Antoinette.
Clearly inspired by her sister-in-law, the comtesse d’Artois’s pliants were very much created in the spirit of Marie-Antoinette’s 1769 commission, the sophistication and technical assuredness of the carving closely echoing the stylings of the royal suite; the trailing flowerheads and central cabochons are a close copy of the 1769 model. Originally a set of twelve pliants, the suite is recorded under no 4362 in the Journal du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne and were delivered by the tapissier ordinaire du Roi, Claude-François Capin. Among the pliants retained from the comtesse d’Artois’s suite three pairs are in the collection of the château de Versailles (inv. no. V.2022.30.1 & VMB 14866 to VMB 14869) and a single pliant, formerly in the collection of the American steel heiress Mary Hayward Weir, is now in the Brooklyn Museum, New York (acc. no. 68.202.4).
The Comtesse d’Artois and her new husband, Charles Philippe, Louis XV’s youngest grandson, moved into their apartments following their marriage in 1773, where they kept residence until their exile in 1789 following the fall of Bastille. Situated on the first floor of the South Wing of the château of Versailles, the lavish rooms were closely situated to the Dauphin and his wife Marie-Antoinette's own apartments on the ground floor. A favourite of Marie-Antoinette’s up until Louis XVI’s assumption of the throne in 1774, it is unsurprising that the new Comtesse d’Artois would seek to emulate the Dauphine’s own taste in furnishings. Indeed, this pliant displays the extravagant trappings of 18th century royal taste and the close association between the Marie-Antoinette and d’Artois suites exemplifies the diffusion of fashions within the royal court.
The stools can also be traced to a payment to the gilder Chatard on 28 June 1788, when the joiner by order no. 191 was tasked with the restoration of the furniture in the Comtesse d’Artois’s bedchamber. Although little documentation survives surrounding the furnishings of these room, the sinuous, lush carving of the pliant and the highly related design to the Marie-Antoinette suite strongly supports an attribution to the menuisiers Nicolas Quinibert Foliot or his brother François Foliot. The brothers equally supplied the following closely related pliants:
A pair stamped N.Q. Foliot, supplied to the Royal Court of Sweden and subsequently sold Christie's, Paris, 24 June 2002, lot 160 (721,750 Euros inc. premium)
A pair stamped N.Q. Foliot at Versailles, circa 1750-1760 (V 4949-4950, donated from the Vogüé collection in 1974)
A pair stamped F. Foliot at Versailles (V 4145-4146, donated by the comte de Boisrouvray in 1965)
Folding stools of this type were employed almost exclusively for the Royal court, and their use was strictly regulated by the hierarchical dictates of court etiquette, whereby courtiers were required to be seated on stools in the presence of the King or Queen, who alone was permitted a chair with arms, emblematic of the power of the throne, a symbolic link which went back at least to the Middle Ages. Thus the inventory of Louis XIV's mobilier listed no fewer than 1,323 stools at Versailles, and the tradition extended right to the end of monarchical rule in France,
Clearly inspired by her sister-in-law, the comtesse d’Artois’s pliants were very much created in the spirit of Marie-Antoinette’s 1769 commission, the sophistication and technical assuredness of the carving closely echoing the stylings of the royal suite; the trailing flowerheads and central cabochons are a close copy of the 1769 model. Originally a set of twelve pliants, the suite is recorded under no 4362 in the Journal du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne and were delivered by the tapissier ordinaire du Roi, Claude-François Capin. Among the pliants retained from the comtesse d’Artois’s suite three pairs are in the collection of the château de Versailles (inv. no. V.2022.30.1 & VMB 14866 to VMB 14869) and a single pliant, formerly in the collection of the American steel heiress Mary Hayward Weir, is now in the Brooklyn Museum, New York (acc. no. 68.202.4).
The Comtesse d’Artois and her new husband, Charles Philippe, Louis XV’s youngest grandson, moved into their apartments following their marriage in 1773, where they kept residence until their exile in 1789 following the fall of Bastille. Situated on the first floor of the South Wing of the château of Versailles, the lavish rooms were closely situated to the Dauphin and his wife Marie-Antoinette's own apartments on the ground floor. A favourite of Marie-Antoinette’s up until Louis XVI’s assumption of the throne in 1774, it is unsurprising that the new Comtesse d’Artois would seek to emulate the Dauphine’s own taste in furnishings. Indeed, this pliant displays the extravagant trappings of 18th century royal taste and the close association between the Marie-Antoinette and d’Artois suites exemplifies the diffusion of fashions within the royal court.
The stools can also be traced to a payment to the gilder Chatard on 28 June 1788, when the joiner by order no. 191 was tasked with the restoration of the furniture in the Comtesse d’Artois’s bedchamber. Although little documentation survives surrounding the furnishings of these room, the sinuous, lush carving of the pliant and the highly related design to the Marie-Antoinette suite strongly supports an attribution to the menuisiers Nicolas Quinibert Foliot or his brother François Foliot. The brothers equally supplied the following closely related pliants:
A pair stamped N.Q. Foliot, supplied to the Royal Court of Sweden and subsequently sold Christie's, Paris, 24 June 2002, lot 160 (721,750 Euros inc. premium)
A pair stamped N.Q. Foliot at Versailles, circa 1750-1760 (V 4949-4950, donated from the Vogüé collection in 1974)
A pair stamped F. Foliot at Versailles (V 4145-4146, donated by the comte de Boisrouvray in 1965)
Folding stools of this type were employed almost exclusively for the Royal court, and their use was strictly regulated by the hierarchical dictates of court etiquette, whereby courtiers were required to be seated on stools in the presence of the King or Queen, who alone was permitted a chair with arms, emblematic of the power of the throne, a symbolic link which went back at least to the Middle Ages. Thus the inventory of Louis XIV's mobilier listed no fewer than 1,323 stools at Versailles, and the tradition extended right to the end of monarchical rule in France,