This chair and its pair (W.7-1956) were almost certainly part of a suite made in 1788 for Queen Marie-Antoinette's cabinet de toilette at the Palace of Saint-Cloud -- the rest of the suite comprising two further armchairs (one at Versailles, the other sold at Sotheby's New York, 22 October 2005, lot78), a sultane (daybed without a back), a bergere armchair and a fire screen (all in the Metropolitan Museum), and a footstool (untraced). The frames were made by the joiner (<i>menuisier</i>) Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené (1748–1803), carved by an unidentified carver, and painted and gilded by the painter-gilder (<i>peintre-doreur</i>) Louis-François Chatard (c. 1749–1819), who eventually delivered the suite to Saint Cloud. The suite is recorded in an inventory of Saint Cloud taken in 1789. This pair of armchairs is then untraced until 1837, when it was sold in the bankruptcy sale of Desiré Emanuel Dellier (act. 1834–39), upholsterer to George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1786–1861), and bought by George Morant & Son of New Bond Street, who sold the chairs on to the Duke of Sutherland, for the Southwest or Green Velvet Drawing Room, Stafford House, London, £18 14s. The chairs remained at Stafford House until at least 1908 (when they were noted there Edwin Beresford Chancellor), then in the possession of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland (1851–1913). They were removed from Stafford House in or before 1913, and taken (presumably at that time) to Hampden House, Green Street, Mayfair (where the Countess of Sutherland (b. 1921) remembers them, up to at least 1938 or 1939). Five years later they were sold by George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland (1888–1963), either from Hampden House or from Sutton Place, Guildford, Surrey (which he had purchased in 1919), at Christie’s London, 17 May 1944, lot 35, bought in at £1,050, but sold afterwards for £2,000 to ‘Charles Beattie’, that is, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875–1968), who gave the chairs to the Museum in 1956.
Other items from the set (another armchair, a bergère and a daybed) are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 41.205.1-3a,b). See Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe and William Rieder,<i> European Furniture from the Metropolitan Museum. Highlights of the Collection</i>. New York, New Haven and London: The Metropolitan Museum / Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 207- 210.
ecrm:P3_has_note
This chair and its pair (W.7-1956) were almost certainly part of a suite made in 1788 for Queen Marie-Antoinette's cabinet de toilette at the Palace of Saint-Cloud -- the rest of the suite comprising two further armchairs (one at Versailles, the other sold at Sotheby's New York, 22 October 2005, lot78), a sultane (daybed without a back), a bergere armchair and a fire screen (all in the Metropolitan Museum), and a footstool (untraced). The frames were made by the joiner (<i>menuisier</i>) Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené (1748–1803), carved by an unidentified carver, and painted and gilded by the painter-gilder (<i>peintre-doreur</i>) Louis-François Chatard (c. 1749–1819), who eventually delivered the suite to Saint Cloud. The suite is recorded in an inventory of Saint Cloud taken in 1789. This pair of armchairs is then untraced until 1837, when it was sold in the bankruptcy sale of Desiré Emanuel Dellier (act. 1834–39), upholsterer to George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1786–1861), and bought by George Morant & Son of New Bond Street, who sold the chairs on to the Duke of Sutherland, for the Southwest or Green Velvet Drawing Room, Stafford House, London, £18 14s. The chairs remained at Stafford House until at least 1908 (when they were noted there Edwin Beresford Chancellor), then in the possession of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland (1851–1913). They were removed from Stafford House in or before 1913, and taken (presumably at that time) to Hampden House, Green Street, Mayfair (where the Countess of Sutherland (b. 1921) remembers them, up to at least 1938 or 1939). Five years later they were sold by George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland (1888–1963), either from Hampden House or from Sutton Place, Guildford, Surrey (which he had purchased in 1919), at Christie’s London, 17 May 1944, lot 35, bought in at £1,050, but sold afterwards for £2,000 to ‘Charles Beattie’, that is, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875–1968), who gave the chairs to the Museum in 1956.
Other items from the set (another armchair, a bergère and a daybed) are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 41.205.1-3a,b). See Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe and William Rieder,<i> European Furniture from the Metropolitan Museum. Highlights of the Collection</i>. New York, New Haven and London: The Metropolitan Museum / Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 207- 210.