Armchair (fauteuil à la reine)

Designer:: Jacques Gondouin (1737–1818)

Maker:: François II Foliot (1748–?1839, master 1773, retired 1786)

Maker:: carved by the workshop of Madame Pierre-Edme Babel

Maker:: gilded by the workshop Marie-Catherine Renon

Maker:: upholstered by Claude-François Capin (died 1789)

Date:: 1779

Culture:: French, Paris

Medium:: Carved and gilded beech; modern silk lampas

Dimensions:: Overall: 39 × 25 1/2 × 19 3/4 in. (99.1 × 64.8 × 50.2 cm)

Classification:: Woodwork-Furniture

Credit Line:: Gift of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1944

Accession Number:: 44.157.2

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 527

Although intended to furnish Marie-Antoinette’s grand cabinet intérieur at the château de Versailles during the winter months, the chair and the rest of the set were removed in 1783, when the grand cabinet intérieur was redecorated and placed in the queen’s billiard room on the floor above. Sold during the French Revolution, the entire set of furniture was acquired by the American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who served as minister of the United States in France from 1792 to 1794. The pieces were subsequently sent to Morrisania, Morris’s country estate in the Bronx.

#2266. Armchair (fauteuil à la reine)

: /

#2267. Armchair (fauteuil à la reine)

: /

For Audio Guide tours and information, visit metmuseum.org/audioguide.

Inscription: (On webbing under seat, painted in black):
Du 1?.../du No 194/6 (crowned W) - inventory mark of Château de Versailles

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France , Cabinet intérieur, Château de Versailles (from 1779) ; Gouverneur Morris , “Morrisania,” New York, New York (from ca. 1793/94) ; Private Collection, Princeton, New Jersey ; Mrs. George T. Bliss ; Susan Dwight Bliss (until 1944; to MMA)

Timelines
France, 1600–1800 A.D.

European Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection
"French Royal Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 63, no. 3 (Winter, 2006)
A Guide to the Wrightsman Galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts (42,439)

Artist / Maker / Culture

Madame Pierre-Edme Babel (1)

Claude-François Capin (1)

François II Foliot (1)

Jacques Gondouin (1)

Marie-Catherine Renon (1)

Object Type / Material

Armchairs (489)