A Consulate period mahogany curule stool , with lion’s paw, by JB Demay

A mahogany curule stool terminating in lion’s paw feet
Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Demay
Solid mahogany
Paris, circa 1800

The form of this curule seat with curved legs is a variation of ancient furniture, derived from the sella curulis, a folding stool with curved legs that could be opened and closed like a camp chair, of which an example was found during the excavations at Pompeii. Probably originating in Etruria, the sella curulis was introduced to Rome, where it was granted as an honorary privilege to the consuls, praetors, and curule aediles of the Republic.

Curule stools reappeared in French furniture at the end of the eighteenth century, encouraged by increasingly frequent references to antique forms, one of the most accomplished examples being the furniture designed by Hubert Robert for the Queen’s Dairy at the Château de Rambouillet. Under the Consulate and the Empire, the use of these curule stools became more widespread, in a context where the antique vocabulary was systematically transposed into the decorative arts. They became a characteristic object of this vogue, immediately evoking an imagery of power and nobility, and bearing witness to an erudite taste.

Jean-Baptiste Demay appears to have been the first Parisian craftsman to produce curule seats. This is attested by the fine mahogany curule armchair from the Revolutionary period preserved at the Musée Carnavalet, which reproduces exactly the form of the sella balnearis (marble bath seat) used in the Baths of Caracalla (see also Christie’s New York, 24 May 2001, lot 84). The form of this stool, with its splayed lion paw feet, is characteristic of the production of the joiner Jean-Baptiste Demay, of whom other stamped curule stools are known, identical in construction and form (de Baecque, Hôtel Drouot, 1 December 2008, lot 205; Daguerre, Drouot, 19 November 2019, lot 225).