This desk chair has a curved and enveloping back called gondola – a name that appeared under the Directory. The top of the slightly reversed and delicately hemmed backsplash, descends in a regular slope to reach the top of the arched armrest, represented by the winding of a wing. The rear feet are sabre-shaped, the slightly concave front waistband is smooth. The anterior uprights are made up of lion’s heads with pronounced sinuous eyebrow arches. The mane on their chest is formed by palmettes. Their body has the form of a hock ending in a clawed foot. They deploy long wings with finely sculpted plumage ending in a coil centred on a blooming flower. The sculpture’s remarkable quality and the elegant curved surface of the connection between the cross member of the backrest and the armrest reveal a perfect mastery from both carpenter and sculptor.
Harlequin model mantel clock
The golden circular dial with guilloché decoration indicates hours in Roman numerals and minutes with Breguet hands. Its eight-day movement is spring loaded. Hours and half hours strike with the same single tone. The mechanism is inscribed in a quadrangular case with an arched pediment adorned with cornucopias and a singing bird above. The case is decorated with flowering branches. Two false counterweights connected to gilt bronze ropes complete the set.
Nanban box
The word Nanban comes from namban-jinou “barbarians of the south”. This derogatory word originally referred to the people of South and Southeast Asia. The word took on a new meaning to designate Europeans coming to Japan from the South by boat, first from Portugal, then Spain, later from the Netherlands and England. This period of Christianization ended with the almost total exclusion of Europeans in 1650, when the archipelago was closed to foreigners under the Tokugawa shogunate. Trade was not completely suppressed though, as the Dutch East India Company, V.O.C., remained the only intermediary based on the islet of Deshima in Nagasaki Bay.
« Carrier négrillon » clock
The circular white enamelled dial, signed “Vaillant à Paris”, indicates hours in Roman numerals and minutes in Arabic numerals via two steel apple hands called “Breguet hands”. They were created in 1783 by Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823), who moved to Paris in 1775.
Greek-style Console
This wall console belongs to a small group of pieces that are among the most characteristic of the Greek-style furniture that prevailed in France in the years 1760-1780. Entirely made of oak, it is topped with a moulded Sarrancolin marble top. The top rests on a belt carved in openwork with foliage patterns, lined with dice decorated with rosettes.
Lavilépi is a blog written by Thierry-Nicolas Tchakaloff, honorary curator of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design of the Indian Ocean (MADOI). It aims at sharing…… Read more
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