Panel (one of a pair)

This pair of panels display symmetrical carving of scrolling acanthus leaves, C and inverted C scrolls as well as vines winding around an upright molding of tied fasces. A radiating star is carved near the top of each panel and the interlaced letters A and M, for Ave Maria (Hail Mary), on the lower half which strongly suggests an ecclesiastical context. Once painted and part of a larger decorative ensemble, these pieces were among the model collection of woodwork, paneling and seat furniture of Maison Leys, a successful decorating business, located at the Place de la Madeleine in Paris. Since 1885 the business was directed by Georges Hoentschel who installed the collection in 1903 in a museum-like display at Boulevard Flandrin, Paris. Three years later, Hoentschel sold the collection to J. Pierpont Morgan who gave the panels with the rest of the decorator’s seventeenth and eighteenth century objects to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1907.