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Abstract
In the Europe 1600–1815 Galleries two baroque chairs, a rococo daybed and a neoclassical chair evoke the opulence of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century seating, a fitting testimony to the increasing demand for comfort in elite households of the period. All four items were re-upholstered in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article explains the lengthy research and conservation process behind the transformation of what were dull, overpainted and overgilded furniture frames, covered in dated fabrics, into extravagant statements of fine craftsmanship, gilded luxury and cushioned comfort – qualities of immense importance to the gallery narratives.
Notes
1. Recent monographs on the subject include: Thornton, Authentic Décor; Pardailhé-Galabrun, The Birth of Intimacy; Crowley, The Invention of Comfort; DeJean, The Age of Comfort.
2. Museum numbers W.32, 32A-1918. Thornton, “The Parisian Fauteuil of 1680,” pp. 102–7. Until Thornton’s redisplay of the galleries and his publication, the chairs had been considered English. Nicolas Largillière’s 1686 portrait of Charles Lebrun in the Musée du Louvre shows a very similar chair.
3. Ralph, Duke of Montagu (about 1638–1709); ambassador 1669–72 and 1676–78; in exile 1683–85.
4. Museum number W.5-1956. Given by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty in memory of his wife. He had purchased it from art dealer Jean A. Seligmann of Arnold Seligmann & Cie, Paris. The coat of arms of Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, was applied in the early twentieth century.
5. Museum number W.6-1956. Given by Sir Chester Beatty. The V&A owns a pair of armchairs from the set. Another armchair belongs to Versailles but is now on loan to the Louvre and a fourth armchair is in a private collection. This example has the Sené stamp and Chatard’s trade label on it. The rest of the suite, comprising a sultane (daybed without a back), a bergère (a comfortable armchair with closed sides) and a fire screen are all in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Only a footstool from the suite remains untraced. Verlet, French Royal Furniture.
6. Usually the set would have been sent to the Garde-meuble de la Couronne’s Claude-François Capin rather than directly to the château. We know of this commission through a mémoire of 1788 written by Sené: “Avoir envellopper le tout et envoyer à St Cloud, cy 12ll.” Paris, Archives Nationales, O/1/3636, mémoire de Sené.
7. Eight chairs in total were re-upholstered for the galleries. Those not discussed here are: chair and two armchairs by Georges Jacob, Paris, about 1785, Museum numbers 1062a-1882, 1063-1882, 1063a-1882; bergère by Jacob-Desmalter, Paris, about 1805, Museum number W.2c-1987; armchair, Rome, about 1800, Museum number W.10-1945.
8. For an overview, see Thornton, in Eastop and Gill, Upholstery Conservation, Foreword.
9. Ethafoam is a durable polyethylene foam that is used for cushioning on furniture.
10. This occurred at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and at the V&A.
11. On the conservation of the frames Zoe Allen; on upholstery supports Philip James; on upholstery Xavier Bonnet; on history and context Leela Meinertas.
12. Pallot, The Art of the Chair, pp. 68–72. These trades are all described in Diderot et d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie and an interactive in Room 4 (The Salon) uses plates from the relevant volumes to reveal the different trades that went into the making of a bed which is in Room 1. Bed by Georges Jacob, France, about 1780–85. Gilded beech, with original silk counterpane. Museum number 8459–1863.
13. Pallot, The Art of the Chair, p. 78.
14. The water-gilding on both chairs appears to be original. It was for a long time obscured by black paint, probably applied in the nineteenth century and removed some time after 1918, when the Museum acquired them.
15. Andrew Thackray, furniture conservator, carried out this work.
16. The gilding had been applied by Malcolm Green in the conservation studio at the V&A shortly after its acquisition in 1956.
17. By French gilding conservator Isabelle Rehault-Wills.
18. Rondot, in Salmon, Madame de Pompadour, p. 520.
19. Similar methods using sub-frames have, for example, been practised by several museums including the Royal Collection workshops at Windsor and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
20. Buckram is a stiff cloth, made of cotton or linen, and is used to cover books or stiffen clothes or furnishings.
21. Melinex© is a polyester with high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, and reflectivity.
22. Gallery 5, display on Louis XIV. Tapestry representing July with the Château of Vincennes. 1670–1700. France (Paris). Designed by Charles Le Brun. Made at the Manufacture des Gobelins in the workshop of Jean de la Croix. Wool and silk, tapestry woven. Museum number T.371-1977.
23. This is a known seventeenth-century pattern and was woven by Prelle for Ham House in 1995. An identical pattern was used on similar chairs at Salsta in Sweden. Thornton, “The Parisian Fauteuil of 1680”; Westman, “New Light,” pp. 248–61.
24. Nomex is the registered trade mark for a durable, flame-resistant aramid polymer, related to nylon.
25. Room 3 City and Commerce, 1720–80, Rococo display, on a plinth alongside a gate, two cabinets, a clock and a portrait of Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher.
26. See, for example, the fabric chosen for a daybed in Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert eds, Encyclopédie, Receuil des planches, Tapisser (Paris, 1772), Plate X.
27. Chelsea Textiles used skilled embroiderers in India.
28. This was done by Xavier Bonnet and his assistants of Atelier St Louis, Paris.
29. Quoted in Verlet, French Royal Furniture, p. 185.
30. She used it in the Cabinet de la méridienne at Versailles and the Boudoir at Compiègne (a textile today in the Hermitage. T 15250, T 15253 and T 15254).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zoe Allen
Zoe Allen is Head of Furniture Conservation at the V&A and has worked there since 2000. Her specialism is in the conservation of gilded objects. Before joining the V&A full time she worked as a conservator for both public institutions and private practices carrying out projects at English Heritage, The Royal Academy, St Paul’s Cathedral and Somerset House. She has published many articles on her work and in 2009 jointly published a book with Christine Powell, Italian Renaissance Frames at the V&A, A Technical Study.
Xavier Bonnet
Xavier Bonnet trained in traditional upholstery techniques for ten years (1988–98), and in 2005 opened his own upholstery workshop in Paris. He has contributed to many major conservation projects internationally including at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2001–2002), at the Châteaux of Versailles, Fontainebleau, Compiègne and Malmaison in France, the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and the White House in Washington. He teaches in various programmes in France, Sweden, UK and US. He is currently completing a PhD at the Ecole du Louvre on Claude-François Capin, upholsterer to the king of France from 1763 to 1789.
Philip James
Philip James has worked in the Technical Services Department of the V&A for over 22 years. The Department is responsible for moving and displaying the vast range of objects from the Museum’s collections. Before joining the Museum he worked for a time in France restoring antique furniture.
Leela Meinertas
Leela Meinertas has been a curator at the V&A since 1976. After working in the Circulation Department and then Furniture Department on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century collections she moved to the Theatre Museum until returning to the V&A in 1996 to work on FuturePlan projects. Between that date and 2016, she worked on the British Galleries (opened 2001), at Apsley House, on the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries (opened 2009), the Furniture Gallery (the Dr Susan Weber gallery) (opened December 2012) and Europe 1600–1815 (opened 2015). In the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department, she works primarily on eighteenth-century furniture.