Neoclassical armchair, probably Russian, circa 1805. Carlton Hobbs LLC.
From the 16th century onward, grottoes were constructed as fanciful retreats from reality. They appeared throughout Europe, from the Buontalenti Grotto at Palazzo Pitti in Florence, to the Grotto of Thetis at Versailles (torn down in 1684), to the Kuskovo Grotto near Moscow. These fantasy structures were “adorned with interesting rock formations, fountains, seashells, and often, matching furniture.”1
Design for the chariot of Thetis by Jean Berain and workshop. (Photo: Snodin and Llewellyn. Baroque. V&A Publsihing, 2009, p155)
The fashion continued through the Rococo period, where scrolling C- and S-curve designs based on the shell were developed, and into the 19th century. A chair currently in our collection, probably Russian and made circa 1805, is designed with a shaped back in the form of a scallop shell (figure 1). The finest craftsmen of this era, such as Heinrich Gambs and Andrei Voronikhin, were known for taking artistic liberties and relying “heavily on decorative elements which assume almost a curiosity value.”2
Inspiration for grotto furniture derived partially from mythology, particularly those myths with maritime subjects such as Venus, Triton, and Thetis. The latter featured in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s tragédie en musique of 1764, Alceste. In the opera, Thetis, a sea goddess or Nereid, aids in the abduction of Alceste; in more general mythology she was married to the mortal Peleus, after being courted by Zeus and Poseidon, and is the mother of Achilles. In a drawing for the set design of a production of Alceste (c. 1674-8), Thetis is depicted riding in a shell-form chariot drawn by dolphins (figure 2).
Venus Chair, probably German, circa 1800. Formerly in the collection of Carlton Hobbs LLC.
A further chair, previously in the Carlton Hobbs collection, is much related to this drawing (figure 3). German in origin, circa 1800, the shaped back of this chair takes the form of a more highly articulated scallop shell with armrests composed of hippocampi (fanciful creatures with the fore-parts of a horse and hind-parts of a fish). The chair is entirely adorned with attributes of Venus, who is traditionally depicted as being born from, or carried ashore by, a scallop shell.
Footnotes:
1. De Dampierre, Florence. Chairs, A History. New York: Abrams, 2006. 110.
2. Chenevière, Antoine. Russian Furniture: The Golden Age 1780-1840. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.
Post a Comment