A Pair of Empire Giltwood Fauteuils in the manner of Jacob-Desmalter, First Quarter 19th Century

This pair is almost identical to the set of seven fauteuils, part of a larger suite including a large canapé, a footstool and five pliants, commissioned from the imperial cabinetmaker François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter (1770–1841) in 1805 for the Grand Salon de l'Impératrice in the Tuileries palace. Removed from the Tuileries in 1815, the set remained in storage with the Garde-Meuble and were later transferred during the reign of Louis-Philippe in 1846 to the Salon de la Reine des Belges at the Grand Trianon in Versailles, where they remain today (Pierre Arizzoli-Clementel & Jean-Pierre Samoyault, Le Mobilier de Versailles, Chefs-D'Ouevre du XIXeme Siecle, Dijon 2009, no.58, p.86-189). A smaller set of almost indentical model was also supplied by Jacob-Desmalter in 1807 for the ground floor salon of the Elysée Palace, inhabited at the time by Napoleon's sister Caroline and her husband Joachim Murat.

Jacob-Desmalter had created an earlier version of the model, probably inspired by the designs of Percier and Fontaine, in 1799 for the Directoire government at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris with a set of six armchairs that were quickly diverted to the Tuileries for Joséphine's use and subsequently transferred to the Grand Salon de l'Impératrice at Fontainebleau, where they are still in situ.