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Artwork Details
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Title:Armchair (caquetoire)
Date:second half 16th century and 19th century
Culture:French
Medium:Walnut; cut silk velvet (cushion).
Dimensions:H. 125.7 cm, W. 62 cm, D. 42.2 cm
Classification:Woodwork-Furniture
Credit Line:Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number:1975.1.2036
The form of this armchair reflects a late sixteenth-century model, but subsequent reconstruction has stabilized and improved its appearance. Most of the stretchers, the seat, and the proper right armrest, as well as its baluster support, are late nineteenth-century elements. The surviving older parts may originate from an armchair dating to the second half of the sixteenth century. Since the nineteenth century the type has been associated with the word caquetoire (from the French caqueter, meaning “cackle”). The term appears in contemporary inventories: a document of 1583 lists “4 chaires faictes en façon de caquetoire,”(1) and a 1589 inventory of Queen Catherine de Médicis describes “Deux petites chaizes caquetoires de tapisserie à gros poinctz, garnyes de franges de soye verte et crespines d’or.”(2) For nineteenth- and early twentieth-century collectors of French enaissance objects, this unusual type with a trapezoidal seat and curved armrests was highly desirable.(3) The chair seat, curved arms, and leg supports are common characteristics; the wide front welcomes a potential user. The shape endured for centuries and may have inspired the eighteenth-century confidante.(4) E. W. Godwin’s “Shakespeare” armchair of about 1881 is a celebrated variant.(5)
Catalogue entry from: Wolfram Koeppe. The Robert Lehman Collection. Decorative Arts, Vol. XV. Wolfram Koeppe, et al. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2012, p. 240.
NOTES: 1. Gay, Victor. Glossaire archéologique, du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance. 2 vols. Paris, 1887-1928, vol. 1, p. 305. 2. Bonnaffe, Edmond. Inventaire des meubles de Catherine de Médicis en 1589: Mobilier, tableaux, objets d’art, manuscrits. Paris, 1874, pp. 96 – 97, no. 380. See also Boger, Louise Ade. The Complete Guide to Furniture Styles. Enlarged ed. New York, 1969, p. 88; DuBon, David. “Renaissance Furniture: Sixteenth-Century Italian and French.” In The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue, vol. 5, Furniture: Italian and French, edited by Joseph Focarino, pp. 3 – 183. New York, 1992, p. 160. 3. Holm, Edith. Stühle, von der Antike bis zur Moderne: Eine Stilgeschichte des Sitzmöbels. Munich, 1978, p. 73, ill. nos. 71, 72; Boccador, Jacqueline. Le mobilier français du Moyen Âge a la Renaissance. Saint-Just-en-Chaussee, 1988, figs. 250 – 55; DuBon 1992, pp. 158 – 64; Thirion, Jacques. Le mobilier du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance en France. Dijon, 1998, ill. pp. 144 – 45. 4. Havard, Henry. Dictionnaire de l’ameublement et de la décoration depuis le XIIIe siecle jusqu’a nos jours. 4 vols. Paris, 1887-90, vol. 1, cols. 950 – 51. 5. Soros, Susan Weber. “The Furniture of E. W. Godwin.” In E. W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer, pp. 225 – 61. Exhibition, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, New York, 17 November 1999 – 27 February 2000. Catalogue edited by Susan Weber Soros. New York, 1999, p. 254, fig. 8-43.
15th century (textile); 19th century (chair, with earlier parts)
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