French Chairs French Chairs

Like their peers, the Madisons often acquired furnishings second-hand through friends, vendors, and auctions. Furniture sales by departing ambassadors or foreign dignitaries often presented an opportunity to acquire otherwise scarce foreign goods.

In 1789, President Washington purchased a set of chairs from French ambassador, the Comte de Moustier when he was recalled. Washington brought the chairs to Philadelphia, the temporary national capital, for use in the green drawing room of the Executive Mansion, a house rented from Robert Morris. Washington filled out the set in 1793 with identical Louis XVI style chairs ordered from French-trained Philadelphia upholsterer George Berteault. The chairs were sold at an auction of Executive Mansion furnishings when Washington retired in 1797, and James and Dolley Madison likely purchased the chairs at this sale.

Extensive investigation of four extant chairs from the set, now in private and museum collections, revealed a common layer of paint bridging three French-made chairs with a surviving American copy. One French chair retained the stamp of Jean-Baptiste Lelarge, a well known 18th century Parisian chairmaker. This discovery led Montpelier to acquire a set of ten nearly identical neoclassical side chairs stamped by the same maker with similarly turned, fluted, and tapered legs, carved rosettes, and squared backs. As Dolley requested in 1816, the chairs are upholstered in the same crimson damask used for the Drawing Room window treatments. The chairs are painted common gray based on microscopy analysis of the originals.