LOUIS XVI PERIOD PLOYANT Stamped by Claude II Sené In carved and gilded wood, of curved form, the uprights decorated with piastres and a frieze of foliage scrolls, the struts adorned with a double ring of laurel leaves from which escapes a knotted garland of fruit and flowers au naturel, the claw feet, trimmed with blue velvet and trimmings, stamped C. SENE under a crossbar Dimensions (without cushion) : H.47 cm (18 ½ in.) l.67 cm (26 ½ in.) P.46 cm (18 in.) Dimensions (with cushion): H.59 cm (23 ¼ in.) Claude II Sené, master in 1769 Provenance : Former Collection Jacques Garcia ; Acquired from the latter by the current owner; French aristocratic collection. A Louis XVI giltwood ployant, stamped by Claude II Sené This ployant is exceptional in more ways than one, not only for the quality of its original design but also for the mastery of its execution by the Parisian joiner Claude II Sené. He was the son of the seat joiner Claude Sené (1724-1792, awarded the title of Master in 1743), known as "Claude I Sené", and the younger brother of the famous carpenter to the Crown, Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené, known as "Sené l'Ainé" (1747-1803, awarded the title of Master on 10 May 1769), whose success largely overshadowed his output. Far less prolific than his brother, the works of Claude II Sené are therefore much rarer1. They are even often confused with those of his father, who practised until the end of the 1780s2, mainly because of the similarity of their stamps. However, his father's stamp is distinguished by a "C" that looks like a "G" and a star that separates the name written with an inverted N: "G * SEИE". Resting on four powerful hairy lion's claws, the curved X-shaped base is carved in the lower part with ample acanthus scrolls, from the heart of which rise, on the sides, fine foliage scrolls twisting around a stem, interrupted by two braces adorned with a plain knob and an olive wreath enrubanné. The scrolls, in the purest arabesque taste of the 1780s, join a square rosette at the top. The tops of the two X-shaped jambs are carved with a fall of piastres, a motif taken from the ancient architectural repertoire and found in many of Claude II Sené's works3. Finally, the richness of this model is completed by the two lower crosspieces in the form of singular and generous Louisquatorz-style tori with flowers and fronds, carved au naturel and covered at the ends with lanceolate leaves. The distribution and choice of ornaments, the balance of its form and the strength of its proportions suggest that Claude II Sené worked to an architect's drawings. Most certainly part of a set, of which it is the only survivor at present, this ployant is, in any case, of superior execution compared to the more slender pliants produced by his brother at the same period for the Salon des Jeux de la Reine at the Château de Compiègne (see Fig. 1). Unfortunately, the silence of the sources and the absence of marks or labels do not allow us to identify the provenance of this majestic ployant, which is obviously prestigious. It is not an ordinary chair that can be folded and easily transported, but rather a piece of furniture worthy of an assembly hall. For this reason, and for the quality of the carving, it is undeniable that Claude II Sené's ployant was destined for a French royal or princely household, or even a European one, given that foreign courts were amply supplied in Paris with the latest fashionable furniture4. 1. See C. Minoda, Claude Sené, Menuisier en siège à Paris au XVIIIe siècle, Master 2 thesis, Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2010, t. I, p. 21-22. After obtaining his master's degree, Claude II Sené moved to rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. He went bankrupt in 1783 before moving to a new workshop in rue de Cléry, close to his brother's. 2. Ibidem, t. I, p. 41-42. 3. See in particular the armrests of armchairs and a sofa sold at Christie's London on 5 May 2011 (lot 467); two armchairs sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, on 7 March 2019 (lot 160) or, more recently, the carved decoration of two armchairs à la reine, sold in Brussels at Antenor V, on 4 June 2023 (lot 179). 4. P. Kjellberg, Le mobilier français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Les Éditions de l'Amateur, 1991, p. 846. Claude II Sené worked occasionally for the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne until the end of the 1780s.