Demay Stamp - Louis XVI Period Salon - Inventory Number Of The Ministry Of Finance - 7 P

Living room furniture consisting of a set of 3 cabriolet armchairs, 2 lounge chairs, 1 bergère with cabriolet backs and a 3-seater sofa à la Reine. Model à la Reine with basket-handle back and elegantly molded plumes, fluted rudenté legs and finely carved connecting dice. Parisian work from the Louis XVI period. Almost all the seats (except 2 armchairs and the sofa) bear the Demay stamp. All the seats bear a stenciled inventory number, with the letters MF (MF335 for the armchairs, MF336 for the chairs, MF337 for the bergère, MF338 for the sofa). The initials MF correspond to the Ministry of Finance. The numbers "in hundreds", suggest an old inventory from the early 19th century (when the inventory numbers of the Second Empire are "in thousands"). It could therefore be the Hôtel de Lionne, rue des Petits Champs in Paris (Ministry of Finance from the end of the Ancien Régime until the Restoration), or the Hôtel du Mont-Thabor, rue de Rivoli, seat of the Ministry of Finance from 1824 until 1871. Jean-Baptiste Bernard Demay (1759-1848), master in 1784, is one of the great seat carpenters who practiced in Paris, rue de Cléry like the majority of his colleagues. If he began his career under the Ancien Régime, he quickly had a certain success by supplying Queen Marie-Antoinette (Petit Trianon). He continued his career after the revolution by changing his stamp. He had success under the Consulate until the end of the Empire with a very careful production. Today, many of the carpenter's chairs are preserved in important public collections, notably at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Musée Carnavalet, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Musée national du château de Versailles. Amateur chairs: sober in appearance, our chairs are designed and built with the perfection criteria of one of the greatest Parisian chair carpenters of the 18th century. The juxtaposed comparison with other basket-handle cabriolets of common quality is clear. Furthermore, the prestigious provenance which has not revealed all its Our chairs are in "house condition", the carpentry is sound (reinforcement under a chair, central rear leg missing from the sofa), they are covered in sky blue Louis XVI style silk faille, faded to take on the color of light gray, with some wear and stains. The upholstery is sound, only the fabric needs to be changed, although it can be kept as is for furniture in everyday use. We can have them re-covered by our upholsterer. (contact us) Sofa: length 176cm, depth 73, seat height 38cm, backrest height 79cm Armchairs: width 59cm, seat height 40cm, backrest height 93.5cm Bergère: width 66.5cm, seat height 44cm, backrest height 100.5cm Chairs: width 49cm, seat height 44cm, backrest height 93.5cm