Armchair (fauteuil à la reine) ca. 1690–1710 French, Paris In the most recent catalogue of the furniture at Versailles,[1] where two related armchairs à châssis (with drop-in seats) are on display in the refurbished bedroom of Louis XIV, this extraordinary chair model was described as "to be dated probably to the second quarter of the eighteenth century."[2] This proposed dating was based on "the setting back of the armrest supports" and "the absence of a stretcher" between the legs.[3] The chair's overall appearance, however, as well as the Italianate, trapezoidal form of the seat make an ear

Armchair (fauteuil à la reine) ca. 1690–1710 French, Paris In the most recent catalogue of the furniture at Versailles,[1] where two related armchairs à châssis (with drop-in seats) are on display in the refurbished bedroom of Louis XIV, this extraordinary chair model was described as "to be dated probably to the second quarter of the eighteenth century."[2] This proposed dating was based on "the setting back of the armrest supports" and "the absence of a stretcher" between the legs.[3] The chair's overall appearance, however, as well as the Italianate, trapezoidal form of the seat make an earlier date much more plausible. Also, the ornamentation and the minimally curved, rather straight-looking arms with their stylized-volute "hand knobs" betray the pervasive influence of Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), director of the royal manufactory at the Gobelins and of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (since 1663) under Louis XIV. Le Brun's playfully arranged designs are echoed in many decorative works of the late seventeenth century, for example, four embroidered wall hangings of about 1685 and an ingeniously designed side table of about 1690, both in the collection of the Museum.[4]Another argument put forward in the Versailles catalogue for a date after Louis's death in 1715 is a perceived similarity between the burly, branchlike legs of this chair model and the pieds de biche, or legs turned three-quarters forward and terminating in a doe's foot that became popular for furniture during the early Régence period (see the entry for acc. no. ).[5] The fanciful, imaginative leg design of this chair model, based on a series of incurving segments (chantournés en dedans), is far more sophisticated than the pieds de biche. It is firmly rooted in the zoomorphic foot forms of the seventeenth century and can be visually documented in the Grand Galerie at Versailles as early as 1684.[6] If the present chair model is datable between 1690 and 1710, it is

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