Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sene
Specialties
Furniture & Works of Art
A master chairmaker as of May 10, 1769, he can be considered the equal of Jacob. Early in his career, he offered his services to a wide private clientele, and from 1785, he became the official supplier to the Royal Furniture Repository, operating from his workshop at 118 Rue de Cléry, under the sign of the "Gros Chapelet," until 1791.
Like Jean-Baptiste Boulard, he worked for the royal residences of Fontainebleau, Compiègne, Saint-Cloud, and Versailles. He provided high-quality furniture to the King and Queen, as well as to Madame Élisabeth, Madame Louise, and other members of the Court. Sené’s commissioned furniture is characterized by meticulous carving, which he entrusted to skilled sculptors with whom he collaborated, such as Nicolas Vallois, Pierre Laurent, and Alexandre Régnier.
This team effort, exclusively dedicated to furniture, resulted in the production of exceptional pieces. Often compared to the work of the cabinetmaker Jacob, Sené's chairs are, however, distinct in several ways: detached columned backs, sober seat designs, twisted fluting, leaf crowns at the top of the legs, Ionic capitals, and flame-shaped ornaments.
Notably, like Jacob, he hollowed out the interior of the seat frames to make them lighter. Sené occasionally embraced exoticism and later, during the Revolution, came under the influence of Anglomania. His son, Claude II Sené, continued his production. Unfortunately, Sené’s work remains less well-known today than that of Jacob, possibly due to the lack of stamps on his pieces and the dispersal of furniture during the Revolution.
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