Painted and gilded wood; chiselled and gilded bronze; retaining a large and poignant part of its original red cloth upholstery.
H. 97.5 cm. (38 ½ in.); W. 68.5 cm. (27 in.); D. 58 cm. (23 in.).
Unstamped.
PROVENANCE : delivered in 1800 by Jacob-Frères to be placed in the Council Room of Napoleon Bonaparte, FirstConsul, at the Château of Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France region), which, together with the Tuileries Palace in Paris, was the seat of the French government from 1800 to the autumn of 1802.
LITERATURE: Percier et Fontaine, Recueil de décorations intérieures, 1801 (first complete edition in 1812), Paris, L’Aventurine (republished), commentary on pl. LV; Johann David Passavant (author) and Johann Nepomuk Muxel (engraver), The Leuchtenberg Gallery. A Collection of Pictures Forming the Celebrated Gallery of His Imperial Highness, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, at Munich, London, 1852, p. 39 and pl. 262; Bernard Chevallier, “Malmaison, château et domaine des origines à 1904”, Notes et documents, Paris, 1989, p. 91-93, 158-160, and p. 440, fig. 242 and 243; Amaury Lefébure, Société des Amis de Malmaison, Bulletin 2009, n° 44, p. 47-48.
At least 169 council meetings were held in this room between 19th January 1801 and 9th September 1802 in the Council Room of Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul, et the Château de Malmaison, official seat of the French government.
Armchair en suite of ours, delivered in 1800 by Jacob-Frères to be placed in the Council Room of Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul, at the Château of Malmaison. This armchair, from the collection of Bernard Steinitz in Paris, was acquired in 2010 thanks to the generosity of the Société des Amis de Malmaison. It is one of the two among the ten armchairs to have recovered its original location at Malmaison. It has been restored to its original state, i.e. upholstered in red cloth with black and gold velvet braiding.
Rueil-Malmaison, musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau (inv. M.M.2010.6.1).
As early as July 1800, a year after Joséphine (1763-1814), née Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte and future Empress, bought the Château of Malmaison, the First Consul ordered that a Council Room should be fitted out so that he might convene his ministers there on a regular basis. At least 169 Council meetings were held in this room between 19th January 1801 and 9th September 1802. In just ten days, the architects Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853) executed a décor in the semblance of a military tent, and the room was furnished with a number of seats in the antique taste, which were delivered by Jacob-Frères, all of them painted black and gold and upholstered in red cloth enhanced with a black and gold velvet braid: “The layout and decoration had to be completed in ten days’ work, so that the frequent trips he [Bonaparte] was accustomed to making there should not be interrupted; consequently, it seemed appropriate to retain for this subject the design of a tent supported by pikes, beams and ensigns, between which are suspended clusters of weapons reminiscent of those of the most famous warrior peoples of the world”, Percier et Fontaine, Recueil de décorations intérieures, 1801 (first complete edition in 1812), commentary on pl. LV.
For the room, Jacob-Frères delivered two small lits de repos (daybeds), each fitted with two pillows, which were placed on either side of the mantelpiece, ten large armchairs, including the pair presented here, and ten X-shaped stools in bronzed and gilded wood—three of which have now been returned to their original location—accompanied by six mahogany chairs. Of the ten large armchairs mentioned above, one, which was usually used by the First Consul when he presided over the Council at Malmaison, was scored with penknife marks, bearing witness to Bonaparte’s impatience. This seat became one of the relics in the gallery of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais (1781-1824), Josephine’s son adopted by Napoleon, in the Leuchtenberg Palace in Munich; unfortunately it is now lost but was engraved by Johann Nepomuk Muxel in Johann David Passavant’s collection The Leuchtenberg Gallery. A Collection of Pictures Forming the Celebrated Gallery of His Imperial Highness, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, at Munich, published in Frankfurt am Main in 1851 and in London in 1852, p. 39 and pl. 262.
Two other armchairs have since been returned to their original location in the Château of Malmaison—the first (inv. M.M.2004.8.1) was acquired by the museum on the art market in June 2004, and the second (inv. M.M.2010.6.1), from the Bernard Steinitz collection in Paris, was purchased in 2010 by the Société des Amis de Malmaison, which donated it to the museum the same year.
Johann David Passavant (auteur) and Johann Nepomuk Muxel (graveur), The Leuchtenberg Gallery. A Collection of Pictures Forming the Celebrated Gallery of His Imperial Highness, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, at Munich, London, 1852, p. 39 and pl. 262.
A fourth armchair, still displaying its original upholstery, belonged successively to Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844), adorning his luxuriant estate in Bordentown, New Jersey, then to his associate Félix Lacoste (1795-1853), and finally to Consul General Louis Borg (1812–after 1867). It now belongs to the collections of the New York Historical Society, Museum & Library, donated by Louis Borg in 1867 (inv. 1867.438) and bears a copper plate that reads: ARM CHAIR USED BY/NAPOLEON BONAPARTE/WHILE FIRST CONSUL/OF THE/REPUBLIC OF FRANCE/PRESENTED BY LOUIS BORG/1867. In 2002, this armchair was featured in an exhibition and a publication which helped to reveal the historical background to all these chairs. A fifth armchair appeared on the Paris art market in April 2003. The whole ensemble was dispersed after the death of Prince Eugène († in 1824), heir to the estate, at a major auction that was held at Malmaison from 31st May to 19th July 1829, under the supervision of Mr. Casimir Noël, who dispersed the 1,699 lots listed in the official report. Among the faithful acquaintances and buyers from a wide range of social backgrounds, special mention should be made of General Gourgaud, who bought two of the ten armchairs in the Council Room.
