French fine 18th armchairs, attributed to G. Jacob around

Magnificent and rare pair of armchairs in mahogany and mahogany veneer.
The front legs tapered and fluted, surmounted by uprights with detached columns.
The baluster-shaped columns, finely carved with acanthus bases and embellished with twisted grooves.
The armrests, delicately carved with strigils and rosettes, are flared and rolled up on the exteriors.
Model with widely rolled up and inverted backrests.
Saber feet at the back.

Restored and re-upholstered in the old style with horsehair on straps and a feather down cushion, they are covered with a cream silk gourgouran.

Good state of conservation; small customary restorations.

Parisian work attributable to Georges Jacob *, Directoire period around 1795.

Dimensions:

Height: 95 cm; Width: 67 cm; Depth: 70 cm

For a very close shepherdess:

Beaussant Lefèvre sale December 18, 2009, Drouot Paris; Lot 190 (10,800 euros hammer)


* Georges Jacob (1739-1814) is a carpenter received master in Paris in 1765.
He is quite simply one of the most prolific siege carpenters of the second half of the 18th century.
Supplier to Queen Marie Antoinette, he collaborated with the greatest decorators of his time: Hubert Robert for example for the armchairs of the Rambouillet dairy but also Delafosse or Prieur.
It supplies the palaces of Versailles, St Cloud, Les Tuileries, Fontainebleau ...
Its period of activity is from 1765-1796.
He then sold the business to his two sons who founded Jacob Frères.
He died in 1814.

Our opinion:

With their overturned backs, their strigil decorations inherited from antiquity and their saber feet made fashionable by the military campaigns then underway, our two shepherdesses represent the Directoire style in all its splendor.
The manufacturing quality of our seats reflects the maturity and decades of experience of a master like Georges Jacob: purity of design, amplitude of shapes, finesse of sculpture, adjustment to the millimeter of assemblies.
This pair of seats can be dated to the last years of its production around 1794-1796, at a time when Georges Jacob was put in financial difficulty by the emigration of part of his clientele who left without paying him, in particular the Count of 'Artois who owes him 85,000 pounds.
Under the Terror, he appeared three times before the Revolutionary Tribunal, accused of having worked for Capet and the ci-devant nobles.
Despite the donation of 500 rifle butts and David's protection, he was imprisoned at the Conciergerie and was not released until after 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794).
On his release he definitively dropped the purely Louis XVI productions to devote himself to more antique forms.
This innovation is reflected in the furniture he supplied to the painter David and the furniture he made, in collaboration with Percier and Fontaine, for the Salle de la Convention.
During this period, and in accordance with the collapse of the corporations, he hardly affixed his stamp any more, before retiring to the profits of his two sons.