Louis Delanois, maître in 1761.

Louis Delanois was one of the most important menuisiers of the 1760's and 1770's, and was among the first to embrace the neo-classical style fashionable among avant-garde collectors of the time. He supplied extensively to marchands-tapissiers, but also numbered among his clients members of the aristocracy with progressive taste, such as the prince de Condé and Mme du Barry. One of his most important commissions was for the King of Poland in 1768-70, when he supplied a significant amount of seat-furniture after striking neo-classical designs by Jean-Louis Prieur (c.1725-c.1785). These included designs for chairs with medallion backs and scrolling arm-supports, which are perhaps the most characteristic feature of the present fauteuils. These so-called 'Fauteuils oval sculpté à la Grec' first appear in Delanois’ ledger on 28 June 1768, when a large consignment was supplied to the Comte Grimod d'Orsay (S. Eriksen, Louis Delanois, Paris, 1968, p. 32 and p. 52 and S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 337 and p. 392, fig. 165 and figs. 411-414).
An identical pair of fauteuils from the Galerie Gismondi Collection, Paris appear illustrated in B. Pallot, The Art of the Chair in Eighteenth-Century France, Paris, 1989, p. 185.