[Rarebooks] FS: Napoleon's Chair-Makers (1812)

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

 From our "Just Catalogued" pages->
<http://www.joslinhall.com/justcat.htm>

Percier, Charles & P.F.L. Fontaine. "Recueil de Decorations Interieures, 
comprenant tout ce qui a Rapport a l'Ameublement..."

Paris; 1812.

Percier and Fontaine were a talented team of Empire/Neo-Classic designers 
who helped Napoleon redecorate many of his residences and public buildings 
in the new Empire styles and also provided the designs and models for the 
French Empire style in furniture and interior décor, as illustrated here. 
They met as students at the Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts and worked together 
in Rome at the French Academy. Lincoln Kirstein has much to say about them 
and their somewhat complicated relationship with Napoleon in the excellent 
catalog "The Taste of Napoleon" (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, 
1969) from which we take the liberty of quoting liberally-

     "As architects and designers, Percier and Fontaine contributed greatly 
to the panoply of elegance with which Napoleon surrounded himself. They 
were the architects for the Empress Josephine for the remodeling of 
Malmaison, they were the architects of the Louvre and of the Tuileries... 
they worked at Saint-Cloud, the Trianon, Compiegne, and Fountainebleau... 
Percier, supremely disciplined by measuring ancient Roman monuments fused 
the various strands into a contemporary Parisian antiquarianism...restored 
to a fresh wholeness, scaled down to modern metropolitan needs, primed for 
production and use. Elements in the vocabulary -eagles, sphinxes, 
victories, wreaths, fasces, columns, trophies, insignia -were worked and 
reworked, but Percier's delineation, his exquisite sense of proportion and 
fitness, his suggestion of the subtle plasticity of chiseled low-relief, 
made it seem like a novel metric to hymn Napoleon's epic."

But it was not all quite that easy. Relations between the Emperor and his 
designers could be strained.

     "(Napoleon) was unpardonably rude to Charles Percier, a sickly mouse 
of a man, angelic character, marvelous draftsman, since he was too shy and 
busy to set himself constantly in the Emperor's entourage and play an 
assiduous courtier. Whereupon, Napoleon pretended he didn't exist. 
Fortunately his devoted comrade Fontaine, a bold, hard-shelled, skillful 
administrator protected Percier to do his best work, secluded in an almost 
secret studio, between floors in the Louvre. ... It is likely Napoleon was 
aware of Percier's part in his partnership with Fontaine; only he hadn't 
the patience to placate shyness; it saved time to talk to one strong 
foreman rather than a committee of two... Fontaine's great service lay in 
knowing how far he could risk Percier's freedom... Official recognition of 
the true genius of the partnership came late. It was not easy to work for 
Bonaparte. ... The team of Percier and Fontaine, in the capacities of 
supreme designer, agile diplomat, expediter, and shop-manager, learned how 
to accommodate Josephine's whim to Napoleon's will. It was she who had 
Percier's name written in on letters-patent naming Fontaine Architect of 
the Palace. How could two such loving comrades be separated? This was as 
much taste as sentiment...".

This oversized volume features grandly decorated cabinets, chairs, sofas 
and other furniture, as well as wall panels and decorations, and silver 
candelabra and dishes, and all sorts of other decorations. A frenzied, 
meticulously detailed explosion of Empirical Neo-Classicism.

Hardcover. 11.5"x16.5", 43 pages of text with an engraved vignette, plus 72 
engraved plates; bound in old vellum-covered boards with a leather spine 
label; boards somewhat worn, scuffed and soiled. Contents with some light 
soil and light variable foxing; not a pristine copy, but still a nice one. 
[08280] $2,500.00

Illustrations->
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images08/th-08280.jpg>

There are over 100 other newly catalogued books on ceramics, glass, silver, 
art, and other related subjects on our "Just Catalogued" pages->
<http://www.joslinhall.com/justcat.htm>


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