I am baffled by this Prie Dieu

What is baffling?

 

It doesn’t look like any I have seen on the net. I’d like to sell it if I can identify the motif, figures, vintage, place of origin, material...
Any ideas? Who are those guys, anyway?

 

It looks sort of like a green man figure. I love it!

Some of the furniture people will be along I'm sure.

 

My first thought for the figure with his/its mouth open was "The North Wind." The other figure is "merely" scowling.

I do see a bunch of grapes(?) in the third photo, but that is not enough for me to think that this is a mainstream "religious" chair.

 

That was my immediate thought too, then moved to photo of the other side & thought of the Devil. I'm definitely getting an overall sense of the side for kneeling being peaceful/good & other either about the evil/vice in the outer world or sort of using a devil to drive one away. The second one immediately made me think of this lady:



ERIC R, do you have any idea of the country of origin?

 

There is some similarity between the prie dieu & this French ladies chair. In on line searches for prie dieux from various western nations, the French ones were most like this one. Style, not necessarily where it was made.

 

No, I have no idea where it comes from. My family had a large collection acquired from the duke d'Atri after the war but I don't know that this was a part of it.

 

Helps rule out possibility that it is an imitation made somewhere else. Looking again through images of prie dieux from various countries & periods, the closest matches are French 19th century. Obviously French manufacture does not mean it was not part of the household of the Duke d'Asti. The people in the forum who really know furniture (I'm not one of them) will want to see the underside & any places that show how parts are joined. They can read a lot in methods of construction & any hardware used.

 

Walnut is the wood that seems to be used for a lot of them. Think the style is most like Renaissance revival.

 

Victorian and it does seem to be walnut, though some pieces look a little plain for walnut. I get a bit of an Italian renaissance revival vibe from this with the florid and neoclassical motifs. May not be Italian but just a sense I get from it. The faces are a typical Victorian furniture motif and may not necessarily represent anything, though I find it interesting that they are not identical.

 

So glad you jumped in, was thinking of tagging you. I did the Q&D kind of research by Googling for images of prie dieux by countries, centuries & styles I thought most likely based on decoration, which is the only part of this I know anything at all about. Italian specimens, much to my surprise, turned out to be very different from this. Once I found that the most similar things turned up for French, 19th century, Renaissance revival, I also looked at chairs fitting those terms for a little confirmation, since there are more of them around.

What is noticeably different about this one compared to others is the way the back is structured. Repeatedly saw backs with 2 turned, straight horizontal bars holding a decorated vertical between them. You can see how this one differs. It is also more elaborately carved & the motif, although read that you do find it often enough in churches here & there, so not incompatible with an item for religious use, is very different from every day members of the family. The 2 different faces convey 2 different moods, almost like tragedy/comedy masks. The fearsome one facing outward reminds me of a gargoyle. It strikes me as having more actual knowledge of Renaissance art & design behind it than do the limited number of others. I'm coming from a very different angle, sounds as though we're arriving at pretty much the same place.

 

I will post a pic or two of the underside soon; but what a great start.

 

Here is the underside of that prie dieu. Looks like it went through a fix sometime in the nineties. My mother had it and died in 1999.

 

Now we're treading in the territory of @verybrad

 

Are those flat head screws or wood plugs on the underside?????? That is SO UNUSUAL!!!!!!! Get it on Antiques Roadshow!!!!!! Or better yet.....send the furniture expert at Christie's some terrific images on a plain light background, and I think they will tell you what you have!!!!! If it's really good, they might want to consign it!!!!

 

If Eric has more pieces of similar quality & age, & wishes to dispose of them, Christie's, Sotheby's, etc. might be worth contacting. For a single item, fees would gobble any profit unless the item was immensely valuable & sold for an appropriate price. Know in connection with another thread some time back I posted a link to the free appraisal service of one of them. I figure that if something was really exceptional, they would express further interest. Have not tried it myself.

 

Can't really tell anything from these pics. The corner blocks are a poor attempt at repair.