Alternate Text

A pair of Italian carved giltwood `X'-frame folding stools, Piedmontese, Circa 1740. Now sold to an important English Interior Designer.

Alternate Text

A pair of Italian carved giltwood `X'-frame folding stools, Piedmontese, Circa 1740. Now sold to an important English Interior Designer.


Our pliants are the closed example to the iconic ones of the Gabinetto Cinese designed by Filippo Juvarra (1678-1736), in the Turin Royal Palace, they are much probably designed by the successor of the Sicilian royal architect, Benedetto Alfieri (1699-1767), who much probably design them for another interior possibly of the Turin Royal Palace, like the related ones at Gabinetto delle Miniature.

Provenance

Possibly Turin Royal Palace 
Rodolphe Kann (1844-1905);
Acquired by Duveen Brothers in 1907 (along with the entire Kann collection); Possibly acquired from Duveen Brothers by Archer Huntington (1870-1955) then donated to Yale University.

Literature

Gillian Wilson, Decorative arts in the J.Paul Getty Museum, 1977, pag.33, n.42 
Bremer- David, Summary, n.327, pag.193, illus.
G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes. Vol. II, Fribourg, 1974, n. 143 pp.641-642.
Alvar gonzales Palacios, Casa D’oro, gli stili dei mobili, Fratelli Febbri editori, Milano 1966, Vol.I, p.112.
Vittorio Viale, Mostra del Barocco Piemontese, Turin 1963, Tav. 185,186a.
Roberto Antonetto, Minusieri ed ebanisti del Piemonte, Daniela Piazza editore, 1985, p.223

Exhibition

One example is in the Collection of the Getty museum, once  exhibited in the Detroit institute of Arts between March-7 and June-13 1975.accession n.74.DA.26
A set of four stools of this model was sold to Founes from the collection of Jacques Doucet, exhibited at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 7, 1912, lot 276 (28,500 Francs). For another three are exhibited in the James A. de Rothschild Collection, Waddesdon Manor, see Geoffrey de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, Vol. II, London, 1874, p. 641.

Detail Description

A pair of Italian carved giltwood `X'-frame folding stools, Piedmontese, Circa 1740, with a rectangular loose cushion seat, above `X'-frame baluster supports carved with scrolls, centered by a patera, joined by shaped stretchers centered by a stylised scallop-shell, on outward scrolled feet. The pliants was considered a seat of favour but also of subjugation, they marked a privileged social rank in front of the king or a prince of the blood. Even unused, they were set up in the official salons to accentuate the standing position of those who had neither the right nor the honour to sit before the majesty of a powerful person.

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