Small Canapé with Gilt and Polychrome Frame and Beauvais Tapestry Cover Showing Pastoral Scenes (Part of a Set with Three Canapés and Four Armchairs)

This canapé is part of a rare set (1918.5.47-53) of seating furniture with its tapestries upholstered to their original frames. The frames were made around 1760 by the Parisian chairmaker and woodcarver Nicolas Heurtaut for his client François de Bussy, an aristocrat and courtier. The tapestry covers were woven for de Bussy at the Beauvais Tapestry Manufactory in 1765. The backs were woven after designs by François Boucher, and at least three of the seats are after compositions by Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Originally, the wooden frames were entirely gilded. They were most likely regilded and painted in the late nineteenth century, when they were owned by Baron Maurice de Rothschild.

Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.

François de Bussy, Paris, frames acquired about 1760, covers about 1765. Baron Maurice de Rothschild, Paris. Wildenstein. Duveen. Frick, 1918.

Source: Furniture in The Frick Collection: French 18th- & 19th-Century Furniture (Pt. 2) & Gilt Bronzes. Volume VI. New York: The Frick Collection, 1992.