From the Palais des Tuileries:
Four Parisian Empire chairs by Pierre-Benoît Marcion
Carved beech with several layers of paint and gilding over chalk and bole ground, older upholstery, newer textile covers. Finely carved with characteristic rosette motifs; columnar front supports and curved back supports, rectangular backrest. With stamps of the châteaux royaux, TH. for the Tuileries Palace inventory and "P. MARCION". Losses to the polychromy retouched in bronze. H 95.5, seat depth 43 cm.
Around 1800 - 1815.
Although Pierre-Benoît Marcion (1769 - 1840) ran a veneer furniture business, he was mainly a ménuisier and probably supplied the court with seating furniture and beds, but also toilette cabinets and bedside tables from 1806 onwards. His furniture was found in the inventories of the castles of Saint-Cloud, Trianon, Compiègne, Fontainebleau, Rambouillet and the Tuileries.
Until its destruction during the Paris Commune uprising in 1871, the Palais des Tuileries bordered the Louvre to the west. Today, only the gardens above the banks of the Seine remain. Caterina de' Medici planned the city palace, which was only largely completed after her death. When Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence, the Tuileries Palace was only used occasionally. Nevertheless, furniture was repeatedly ordered for the interior, but especially again under Louis XVI. The collection of the Mobilier national still contains numerous pieces of seating furniture, wall sconces and also carpets from the period shortly before the Revolution and afterwards, for the interior under Napoléon and Joséphine. Georges I. Jacob and François-Honoré Jacob-Desmalter supplied the city palace with representative pieces, among others.
Provenance
Palais des Tuileries.
European private ownership.
Literature
For more on the inventory stamps see Nicolay, L'art et manière des maîtres ébénistes français au XVIII siècle, 2. Nicolay, L'art et la manière des maîtres ébénistes français au XVIII siècle, vol. 2, Paris 1959, pp. 89, 127, 139.
For this cabinetmaker see de Salverte, Les ébénistes du XVIII siècle, Paris 1953, p. 214.
S.a. Planchon, Pierre-Benoît Marcion (1769 - 1840) Ébeniste de Napoleon, Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau 2007.
Cf. Samoyault, Mobilier Français, Consulat et Empire, Paris 2009, fig. 275 f.