A pair of Empire sofas signed CRESSENT, Paris circa 1810

A PAIR OF EMPIRE SOFAS SIGNED CRESSENT
Carved and painted wood
Paris by 1810

A Pair of Empire period sofas, each with three backrests of equal height and of rectangular form. The four uprights, shaped as tapered columns and banded with lotus-leaf motifs, are embellished with capitals and topped with turned wooden spheres. The four legs terminating in splayed, Egyptian-inspired papyriform capitals. The seats are fitted with feather-filled cushions.

Jean-Baptiste Firmin Cressent (1755–1825), a member of the Amiens-based Cressent dynasty—active in the 17th and 18th centuries and renowned for its woodcarvers, cabinetmakers, and joiners—was the great-nephew of the celebrated Régence cabinetmaker Charles Cressent (1685–1768).

Born in Amiens around 1756, he moved to Paris, where he appears to have worked as a cabinetmaking journeyman before setting up as a Parisian joiner in the years following the Revolution. He lived first at 6, rue Saint-Nicolas, then at 25, rue Verbois, where he died in 1825. He was the brother-in-law of the joiner Nicolas-Simon Courtois, who married his sister Anne Cressent (1739–1832).
Cressent supplied many seats to the Imperial administration, and he supplied Prince Eugène, Napoléon stepson, with a suite of mahogany seating furniture for the Hôtel de Beauharnais in Paris (now the German Embassy).