Open armchair
Jean-Baptiste Lebas (1729 - c.1795)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1770 - 1780
Materials
Giltwood, paint, Aubusson upholstery, brass castors, walnut seat rails
Measurements
90 x 63.5 x 68 cm
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Hughenden, Buckinghamshire
NT 428621
Summary
A giltwood and cream-painted open armchair, French, circa 1770-1780. By Jean-Baptiste Lebas, Maître in 1756. Upholstered in needlework depicting floral bouquets within gilt cartouches on grey ground, the oval moulded back with rose bud and leaf cresting, the padded arms with scroll terminals and raised on inswept curvilinear supports, the padded seat with painted front rail centred with a tablet and carved with a rose bud and leafy sprig, standing on fluted tapering legs headed with rosettes and terminating in brass castors, stamped to seat rail 'I. LEBAS'. A near pair to NT 428622 but with differences to the carved detail, as well as being upholstered quite differently.
Full description
Jean-Baptiste Lebas (1729 - circa 1800) became a maître-ebeniste in 1756. Based in the Rue de Clery, Paris, he numbered among his clientele both the Comtesse du Barry and the Comte d'Artois. He made chairs in both the Louis XV and Louis XVI style. Both his sons, Barthelemy and Jean-Jacques, became maître-ebenistes and worked with their father.
Provenance
Visible in the 1881 photograph of The Library when it was Disraeli's Drawing Room.
Marks and inscriptions
On seat rail: I. LEBAS
Makers and roles
Jean-Baptiste Lebas (1729 - c.1795), maker