X-framed stool, one of two, of mahogany, the frame carved with lion heads and feet, parcel gilt, the stretchers of stained beechwood, the seat with renewed upholster in beige silk satin, edged with a woven braid.

An X-frame stool in mahogany and giltwood, upholstered in beige silk satin, edged with a woven braid.The members of the X-frame are of rectangular section, the feet carved as formalised lion paws with acanthus frond above, all gilded. At the top the supports are carved with lion heads forming hand rests, with acanthus below (neither heads nor acanthus gilded). At the crossings, the frame is set with a gilt-brass patera (rosette).and the frame is set and strengthened on the outer edges of the crossing with giltwood inserts, carved in a fan motif. The cross stretcher is turned in a double baluster. The seat is upholstered on a structural frame of beech, the visible edges veneered in mahogany (the seat rails have bee renewed). The upholstery has been renewed in the middle of the 20th century and is now covered in beige silk satin with an edge-braiding woven with formalised foliage in browns and beiges. Underneath the upholstery shows three broad strips of buckramised hessian, sewn together at the edges. It is not possible to see whether there is webbing above this or whether this acts as the webbing.
Large metal struts under the crossings may be an original strengthening or an early mend. One arm of the X on the lable side has fractured and been mended. The underside of the crossing show 4 dowels on each side and the fan-shaped inserts (lotus leaves) show disturbance. The stretcher has been re-set and both ends show traces of glue.

Bequeathed by Mrs T.R.P. Hole, from the collection of Bettine, Lady Abingdon

One of a large number of pieces of French furniture, ceramics, metalwork, books and other decorative arts, from the Empire period and earlier, acquired in Paris by Charles Stuart (from 1828 1st Lord Stuart de Rothesay) (1779--1845). The Empire furnishings were probably purchased during his first period as ambassador to Paris (1815--1824), the earlier furnishings during his second embassy (1828--30). The Empire furnishings may have been intended for a London house. He acquired 4 Carlton House Terrace, where improvements were carried out from 1827 to 1831, and he moved in in 1834. Older furnishings were more probably purchased for his country house, Highcliffe Castle, Hampshire (now Dorset), which was remodelled and enlarged in the most ambitious Gothic style from 1830 to 1834, with some work continuing throughout the 1830s. In 1841 the house in Carlton House Terrace was let, and the family moved their London residence to Whitehall Yard. It was possibly at that time -- or in 1845, the date of Lord Stuart de Rothesay's death -- that the Empire furnishings were moved to Highcliffe.
Lord Stuart de Rothesay's collections were inherited in 1867 by his younger daughter Louisa, Lady Waterford (1818--1891), who maintained Highcliffe Castle. She left the house and its collections to her distant cousin Major-General Edward Stuart Wortley (1857--1934). When his younger daughter Elizabeth ('Bettine') married Montagu Bertie, 8th Earl of Abingdon, in 1928, he bought the castle and its contents from his father-in-law. The Abingdons sold Highcliffe and most of its contents in 1949, but retained the present group of furniture and some other pieces. After her husband's death in 1963, Lady Abingdon lived for much of the time with her close friends Mr and Mrs Tahu Hole, to whom she bequeathed all her personal possessions on her death in 1978. Tahu Hole died in 1985, and a year later his widow Joyce approached the Museum and offered the collection as a bequest. She died in December 1986, and in accordance with her will the Museum chose those items that it wished to add to its collections. Other items from the collection were sold to benefit the Museum, and the proceeds added to the funds bequeathed.


The stools were part of a suite of furniture supplied c. 1805 by the Parisian firm of Jacob-Desmalter to Marechal Ney (1769-1815) for the Hôtel de Saisseval, Paris. In the inventory taken after the execution of Marechal Ney, started on 27 December 1815, the contents of a room 'servante Petiti Salon' [serving as a small drawing-room) at the Hôtel included a suite of seat furniture 'acajou, satin bleu brochéé, figures égyptiennes en bois et cuivre d'oré' [ in mahogany, blue brocaded satin, egyptian figures in wood and gilt-bronze]. The whole suite was valued at 900 francs. It consisted of '2 large bergères [armchairs with upholstered sides], 2 smaller bergères, 2 other bergères, 2 fauteuils [open-sided armchairs], 4 chaises [chairs], 2 tabourets en X [X-framed stools] and 1 tabouret de pied [footstool]'. When the Hôtel was rented by the Comte de Peralda from February 1816 to April 1817, the same room is described as having a suite of seat furniture in mahogany with gilt-bronze mounts, upholstered in 'étoffe de soie fond bleu et chamois' [silk fabric with a blue ground and buff colour]. Although the number of pieces in the suite differs slightly from the inventory taken after the death of Ney, it is probably the same suite. There is no traceable public sale of these pieces after the end of Peralda's tenancy but Lord Stuart de Rothesay may have bought pieces directly from Ney's widow (he was opposed to the execution but, as ambassador, was unable to take action). Other pieces from the suite were also acquired, in addition to the stools and some are now in the Museum's collection (W.2A to C-1987, W.10Ato B-1987) together with the cabinet W.21-1987 that probably came from the same room.

One of the stools was illustrated in the series of Country Life articles on 'Highcliffe Castle' by Christopher Hussey, vol. XCI (1942), pp. 806-9, 854-7, 902-5. Lord Stuart de Rothesay had built the castle in the 1830s and it descended in the family to Lady Abingdon.

The stools are a version of those supplied for the Consulate at the Tuileries in about 1800 by Jacob Frères. The form was often repeated for the Imperial palaces (for which the firm of Jacob was a major supplier).In 1807 six stools identical to this were supplied for the boudoir of the Empress Josephine in the Tuileries Palace. Two of these are not in the Musée Marmottan, Paris and one was illustrated in Denise Ledoux-Lebard, 'A Notable Collection of Empire Furniture', Apollo, June 1976, vol. CIII, no. 172, fig 5. In 1811 similar stools were supplied for Malmaison. Originally, the upholstery would have been much more hard-edged but this has been lost in subsequently re-upholsteries. The design appears to derive from published designs by Percier and Fontaine (1801 and 1812), plate 39, no. 5.

Jacob-Desmalter was the largest and most fashionable supplier of furniture in Paris from about 1800 to 1820. The firm certainly made this stool, and its pair, although neither bears their stamped mark. A hand-written paper label inside one of the long seat rails is inscribed with the name of the client, Marshal Ney, and the name of the room for which it was provided, the Petit Salon. Jacob-Desmalter is the only maker known to have used this form of labelling. The seat rails of the stool have been replaced at some time and it is likely that the firm's stamped mark was lost at that time.

Marshal Ney (1769–1815) was a celebrated military hero in the Napoleonic army. After Napoleon was crowned as emperor in 1804, he was keen to establish his marshals as part of his imperial court. He arranged suitable marriages for several of them. Ney's wife, whose mother had been one of Queen Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting before the French Revolution of 1789, was particularly successful in helping her husband to consolidate his position. In March 1805 they acquired a grand Paris house, the Hôtel de Saisseval, and immediately began to decorate and furnish it, using the firm of Jacob-Desmalter. The Petit Salon was one of the more simply decorated rooms in the house, with seat furniture in mahogany. This was in contrast to the giltwood used in the Salon Vert and other, grander rooms.

W.4A-1987