A pair of important Dutch Rococo chairs
Solid walnut and walnut veneer on softwood. Oak frame with textile upholstery. High backs with serpentine outer frames and a pierced middle sections carved with rocaille scrolls and foliage. Crowned by large shells above cascade motifs flanked by floral swags. The reverse of the backrests undecorated for placement against a wall. The outer corners of the trapezoid aprons slightly rounded. The scroll-shaped front legs carved with shells at the knees, the back legs of a simple outswept design connected by stretchers. The central beam carved with a shell. Both chairs incised VII and IIV in the front of the aprons. The moulding under the backrest replaced. The stabilising stretcher and one back knee missing. H 120.5, W 57, D 37 cm.
Netherlands, attributed to Amsterdam, 1745 - 55.
In 1943, Robert Schmidt attributed this type of chair without reservation to the manufactory of Abraham Roentgen. The author referred to the chairs in the Berlin Palace Museum and the six "completely identical" ones from the Thewaldt Collection (auctioned by Lempertz Cologne on November 14th 1903), which were made for Brühl Palace. They differ from our specimens only in the use of the hoof feet and a concave-convex frame. The backrests are always identical and are designed to form pairs, which can be seen in the corresponding carved decoration. Schmidt already recognized the stylistic proximity to Dutch and English chair designs and explained this with reference to Abraham Roentgen's seven-year journeyman period, which led him to The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and London and which doubtlessly enriched his formal repertoire significantly. It is only in recent research, and especially in the publication of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam by Rainier Baarsen from 2001, that has relegated these chairs to the Netherlands, probably to Amsterdam, around 1745 - 55.
Provenance
Private collection, Lower Rhine Region.
Literature
Cf. Schmidt, Pantheon 1943, vol. XXXI, p. 168 ff. Cf. For an identical chair formerly housed in the Thewaldt collection in Cologne in Schmitz, Deutsche Möbel des Barock und Rokoko, Stuttgart 1923, p. 134.
Cf. also Colsman, Möbel Gotik bis Jugendstil. Die Sammlung im Museum für Angewandte Kunst Cologne, Stuttgart 1999, no. 135, p. 248 f., for five chairs and an armchair described as “Rhenish”, on permanent loan to Cologne's historic council house.
Cf. cat. Rococo in Nederland, Amsterdam 2001, no. 101 and 102, p. 188 ff, for two identical chairs and an armchair.