Jean-Baptiste Boulard Giltwood Armchair

A fine and rare late Louis XV/ Louis XVI giltwood armchair by court cabinet maker Jean-Baptiste Boulard.

With stunning guilloche-carved frame and silk damask upholstery.

Stamped Boulard on the underside of the seat rail.

Circa 1770.

A similar chair, one of a set made for Louis XVI's gaming room in 1786 is currently on view at the MET museum New York.

A fascinating account of how the chairs were created provides a wonderful insight into how this chair of a similar period would have been made and by whom.

The various memoires documenting the creation of the seat furniture illustrate the typical eighteenth-century division of labor in such projects. The menuisier Boulard, who received many commissions from the court, cut the wood for the chairs with their arched top rail and slightly curving seat rails and assembled them.

The decorative carving, consisting of guilloche and pearl motifs matching the ornament of the door cases in the king's Salon des Jeux, was done under the direction of Jean Haure by the sculptors Nicolas-Francois Vallois and Lambert Charny, who were responsible for, respectively, twenty-four and twelve chairs each. Three different gilders were called upon to finish the frames, and the upholsterer Claude-Francois Capin (d. 1789)

reference: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/232177

Seat Height: 42cm