Louis XVI-Style Ivory Painted Side Chair with Carved Urn-and-Ribbon Pierced Splat

A side chair in the Louis XVI taste, painted ivory, whose entire purpose is the carved panel at its centre: a pierced splat built around a classical urn, from which foliage spills outward through crossed torches and quivers, the whole composition gathered under a ribbon tied in a bow at the crest. The back frame is edged in fine carved beading; seat rails carry rosette blocks at each corner above stop-fluted, tapering legs. The vocabulary itself is pure 1780s Paris: urns, torches, quivers and ribbons were the emblems of the neoclassical moment, carved into chairs exactly like this one for the last drawing rooms of the ancien régime. The splat is virtuoso work. Pierced carving is the most unforgiving discipline in a chairmaker's repertoire—the panel is cut through entirely, so every leaf and ribbon must be structurally self-supporting, and a single split during carving scraps the whole panel. Here the urn, foliage and trophies are modelled in genuine depth, undercut so they read in shadow, and the painted finish—applied thinly enough that no detail drowns—proves the carver's confidence. The carving survived untouched, complete with no losses, a rarity for openwork this intricate. This is not a chair for hiding at a dining table—it is a chair for being seen from behind. Place it where the splat faces the room: floating at a writing desk, beside a dressing table, in the corner of a bedroom against a plain wall, or as the hall chair that greets visitors. In an all-white or pale interior it disappears beautifully into the scheme until light rakes across the carving; against colour, it reads as a cameo. A pair, flanking a console or a doorway, is the classical move.