François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter
Encyclopedia
Georges Jacob
Georges Jacob was one of the two most prominent Parisian master menuisiers, producing carved, painted and gilded beds and seat furniture and upholstery work for the French royal châteaux, in the early Neoclassical style that is usually associated with Louis Seize.Jacob arrived in Paris in 1754 and...
, an outstanding chairmaker who worked in the Louis XVI style
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
and Directoire styles of the earlier phase of Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
and executed many royal commissions, Jacob-Desmalter, in partnership with his older brother, assumed the family workshop in 1796. Freed from the Parisian guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
restrictions of the Ancien Régime, the workshop was now able to produce veneered case-pieces (ébénisterie
Ébéniste
Ébéniste is the French word for a cabinetmaker, whereas in French menuisier denotes a woodcarver or chairmaker. The English equivalent for "ébéniste," "ebonist," is never commonly used. Originally, an ébéniste was one who worked with ebony, a favoured luxury wood for mid-seventeenth century...
) in addition to turned and carved seat furniture (menuiserie). When his brother died, Jacob-Desmalter drew his father from retirement and began to develop one of the largest furniture workshops in Napoleonic Paris.
Furniture in the Empire style produced by the firm of Jacob-Desmalter et Cie ("and Company") in rue Meslée, Paris, mainly employed mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
veneers with gilt-bronze mounts. Seat furniture forms, of mahogany when they were not painted or gilded, derived inspiration from seats and thrones of Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, recognizable in details from bas-reliefs and on Greek vases. Jacob-Desmalter, principal supplier of furniture to the Emperor, also received commissions from Pauline Borghese
Pauline Bonaparte
Pauline Bonaparte was the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla, an imperial French Princess and the Princess consort of Sulmona and Rossano. She was the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte, Corsica's representative to the court of King Louis XVI of France. Her elder brother,...
, Napoleon's sister in Rome, and the Empresses Joséphine
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
and Marie Louise
Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma
Marie Louise of Austria was the second wife of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French and later Duchess of Parma...
, for whom he supplied numerous pieces for the Château de Malmaison
Château de Malmaison
The Château de Malmaison is a country house in the city of Rueil-Malmaison about 12 km from Paris.It was formerly the residence of Joséphine de Beauharnais, and with the Tuileries, was from 1800 to 1802 the headquarters of the French government.-History:Joséphine de Beauharnais bought the...
, the Château de Compiègne
Château de Compiègne
The Castle of Compiègne is a French château, a royal residence built for Louis XV and restored by Napoleon. Compiègne was one of three seats of royal government, the others being Versailles and Fontainebleau...
, the Tuileries Palace
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace was a royal palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine until 1871, when it was destroyed in the upheaval during the suppression of the Paris Commune...
, and other imperial residences. Important commissions included a magnificent cradle built for the infant King of Rome, and the most expensive single item, the jewel cabinet for the Empress, delivered in 1809 for the Empress Joséphine's state bedroom in the Tuileries (soon to be used by Marie-Louise). It was designed by the architect Charles Percier
Charles Percier
Charles Percier was a neoclassical French architect, interior decorator and designer, who worked in a close partnership with Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, originally his friend from student days...
and embellished with gilt-bronze plaques: the central one, according to its original description, depicts the "Birth of the Queen of the Earth, to whom Cupids and Goddesses hasten with their Offerings" by the Empire's most eminent bronzier, Pierre-Philippe Thomire
Pierre-Philippe Thomire
Pierre-Philippe Thomire a French sculptor, was the most prominent bronzier, or producer of ornamental patinated and gilt-bronze objects and furniture mounts of the First French Empire...
, modelled by Antoine-Denis Chaudet
Antoine-Denis Chaudet
Antoine-Denis Chaudet was a French sculptor who worked in a neoclassical style.-Works:*Joseph Sold by his Brothers Antoine-Denis Chaudet (1763–1810) was a French sculptor who worked in a neoclassical style.-Works:*Joseph Sold by his Brothers Antoine-Denis Chaudet (1763–1810) was a French sculptor...
.
Greatly dependent on orders from Napoleon, the firm went bankrupt in 1813, when Imperial debts mounted during the last phase of the Napoleonic Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
. Jacob-Desmalter, however, managed to resurrect the company, and commissions revived after 1815; he continued to run it until his son, Alphonse-George, succeeded him in 1825.
External links
Further reading
- Denise Ledoux-Lebard, 1965. Les ébénistes Parisiens du dix-neuvième siècle .