Lot n° 18
Estimation :
800 - 1200
EUR
Jean-Baptiste BOULARD (1725-1789)
A chair, delivered to the Crown for the apartment of the Marquis de Talaru, the Queen's First Maître d'Hôtel, at the Château de Fontainebleau.
Circa 1785.
Moulded wood, square back, resting on tapered, fluted and filleted legs.
H. 88,5 cm. L. 47,5 cm. D. 51 cm.
Marks : F crowned ; n°831 4.
Jean Baptiste Boulard, received a master's degree in 1754, settled in rue de Cléry, in Paris, obtained in 1777, the title of "King's Carpenter" and became one of the most abundant suppliers of the Garde Meuble of the Crown. His work can be seen in the Porcelain Dining Room, in the Salon des Jeux of Louis XVI in Versailles, at Madame Elisabeth's in Montreuil, etc.
Delivered around 1785 to furnish the bedroom of the apartment of César-Marie de Talaru (1725-1794) at the Château de Fontainebleau, our chair is listed under number 831 in the inventory of this residence in 1787 (ill.1.2.3).
This furniture, which included a bergère, two armchairs and four chairs, was then "upholstered in old silk velvet" and "painted white".
The Marquis of Talaru, in addition to a successful career in arms, twice enjoyed the position of First Maître d'Hôtel of the Queen, received from his father. The first time, with Queen Marie
Leszczynska from 1763 to 1770, and the second time, with Queen Marie-Antoinette, from 1782 to 1789. To administer the Queen's property and estates, he received a salary of 250,000 pounds.
Described as "a very wise man and even a very pious one", he was awarded the red cord of Grand Cross of the Order of St Louis in 1780.
Following a gross but tragic administrative error, he was sent to the guillotine in 1794, the court having preferred to falsify the indictment bearing his name, whereas he was guilty only of the "crime" of owning the private mansion where the Convention had installed, by force, a house of arrest where a suspect was imprisoned. His name appears under the general list of those guillotined in Paris under number 2396.
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