Boulle Sofa

Boulle Sofa, France, second half of the 19th century.

Ebony, bronze, velvet.

H 113 x 197.5 cm; depth 87 cm

This sumptuous sofa, made of lacquered and gilded wood, is an exquisite example of French craftsmanship from the Boulle workshop. The fame of Boulle furniture began with the work of the family founder, André-Charles. A cabinetmaker at the court of King Louis XIV, he popularized his style, associating it with his own name, and passed the workshop to his sons.

André-Charles invented an inlay technique that saved expensive materials thanks to a system that inverted positive and negative; when the tortoiseshell served as the background, the metal created the motif, and vice versa.

The sofa, shaped like a triclinium, features two lateral backrests decorated with satyrs; a Talamone and a Caryatid support the two front capitals surmounted by lions; The base is decorated with the face of Dionysus. The structure is entirely adorned with floral motifs inlaid using the Boulle technique.