The beadboard paneling in this small drawing room from a building at 35, Rue Joubert (formerly Rue Neuve-des-Capucins) in the ninth arrondissement of Paris is a rare example of interior decoration from the late Ancien Régime, around 1790. The candelabra motifs in trompe-l’œil suggest a patinated bronze ornamentation framing Wedgwood-style medallions with colored grounds. The two-tone faux bois doors have a similar decoration. The red griotte marble and gilt bronze fireplace, made slightly later, is a fine example of late eighteenth-century “Egyptomania.”
The furniture is of the kind that would have graced a connoisseur’s drawing room in the late eighteenth century. It combines Louis XVI pieces in painted wood and innvative mahogany furniture from the 1790s – a practice recorded by inventories and contemporary genre paintings by artists such as Louis-Léopold Boilly and Jean-Baptiste Mallet. The room also features some quality scientific instruments (a pendulum clock by Antide Janvier, a decimal clock) and a veritable collection of paintings: landscapes by Claude-Louis Châtelet, Hubert Robert, Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg and Bernardo Bellotto and mythological scenes by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre, Gasparo Diziani and Guillaume Ménageot.