Pair of Renaissance Upholstered Chairs

A very rare pair of French Renaissance upholstered chairs, dating to the late 16th century, constructed in walnut with columnar legs and plain rails, and retaining their original period needlework covers. The textile, worked in richly embroidered floral motifs on a dark ground, is of exceptional survival and reflects the opulent decorative vocabulary of the Valois court, where seating was often as much a display of textile splendour as of carpentry.
These chairs embody the early transition in seating furniture from carved oak to upholstered walnut, designed not for utility but for conspicuous luxury. The large floral motifs resonate with the emblematic symbolism of renewal and fertility, popular in Renaissance decorative arts.

Provenance is distinguished: sold through French & Company, New York, one of the premier American dealers of the early 20th century, whose clientele included J.P. Getty, the Rockefellers, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pairs of this period with surviving original upholstery are of the greatest rarity, with comparable examples preserved in the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.