NARRATOR: French eighteenth-century furniture enriched mansions and palaces far from Paris. Among them was a grand new townhouse in Copenhagen built by Baron Johann Ernst Bernstorff, who had been the Danish ambassador to the court of Versailles. These four chairs, as well as the settee, are part of a suite of furniture that Bernstorff commissioned for a tapestry room. Adorning its walls were hangings woven at the Beauvais Manufactory. And this is a rare instance when the upholstery on the chairs, also woven at Beauvais, is original. Danïelle Kisluk-Grosheide.

DANIËLLE KISLUK-GROSHEIDE: And when you look very carefully, you see how the upholstery and the frames of the chairs and the sofa form a unity which is so often lost when the original upholstery is discarded and replaced. But in this case, you'll find that the decoration surrounding the various birds and flower decoration on the seats and the back of the chairs have woven borders that mimic the wonderful undulating outline of the frames of the chairs themselves.