Re-evaluation of French Renaissance furniture at The Frick Collection, New York, USA

Abstract

This paper is based on a comprehensive technical study of the French Renaissance furniture in The Frick Collection, New York, USA, which includes a remarkable group of 15 pieces – tables, dressoirs, and chairs – said to be from sixteenth-century France. All came from the celebrated collection of Maurice Chabrière-Arlès, a well-known French collector of the second half of the nineteenth century. The study of French Renaissance furniture is complex for multiple reasons including the lack of objects with a secure provenance, and because alterations, over-restoration, embellishments, and fakes are ubiquitous. At the Frick a re-evaluation of the collection was undertaken, which examined various construction methods, evidence from tool marks, and restoration, including analysis of hardware and of remnants of surface coatings. This close and lengthy scrutiny of selected pieces of furniture permits distinction of authentic elements from later reproductions and answers questions of authentication. Through the discussion on a sixteenth-century dressoir this paper also illustrates how the study of provenance allows for a more informed and nuanced evaluation of material evidence. As a result, this research provides new insights into sixteenth-century furniture making and nineteenth-century restoration practices.