Jacob Georges

Georges Jacob is a French cabinet maker who produced an untold amount of chairs from the reign of Louis XV to the Consulate. When he was an apprentice carpenter, he completed his journeyman internship with Louis Delanois, the supplier of the Comtesse du Barry. A fervent promoter of neoclassical sieges, Louis Delanois will exert an indisputable influence on Georges Jacob. Received master in 1765 he opened his workshop rue de Cléry then moved-in 1775 rue Meslée, thanks to a wealthy and royal clientele. In fact, requested from 1773 by the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, he would not stop working for him until the Revolution. Georges Jacob is one of the official suppliers of Marie-Antoinette, but also of Monsieur, Count of Provence and brother of the King, future Louis XVIII, of the future Charles X, of the Prince of Condé, of the Duke of Penthièvre, as well as of the princes foreigners like the future Gustav III of Sweden and George IV of England. An innovative cabinetmaker, he is often one step ahead of future trends and does not hesitate to imagine new decorations and new shapes of legs or seat arms such as connecting dice decorated with rosettes, the finished console legs. at their top by a volute and the baluster-shaped armrest supports. The carved ornamentation of his furniture is abundant with recurring themes such as natural motifs of flowers and foliage, and friezes of foliage, piastres, ribbons, pearls and interlacing. He was one of the promoters of English seats, with openwork backs inspired by Chippendale and Adam, as well as the initiator, from the Louis XVI period, of the characteristic shapes of what we call today the Directoire style, inspired among other things by “Etruscan” furniture. While his friendship with the painter Jacques-Louis David enabled him to navigate the Revolution without a hitch, he quickly encountered other problems. In fact, in 1796 he sold his business to these two sons who thus founded “Jacob Frères” but unfortunately the eldest, Georges II, died in 1803. Georges Jacob father would then reconstitute with his second son François-Honoré-Georges a business, Georges Jacob senior died in his home rue Meslée in 1814.