Original furniture design from the factory Maison Schmit

Date: c.1890

Watercolour and graphite on paper. Size of sheet: 28.4 x 43 cm. Inscribed in pencil '343' and in pen '739'.

Provenance: from the Robert Barley Collection.

Design for a High-Back Settee with Five Throw Cushions

Famous furniture factory Maison Schmit was founded by Frédéric Schmit in 1818 in Paris, France.

Born in Luxembourg, Schmit became one of the great Parisian cabinet makers, specialized in producing high quality furnishings and meubles de fantasie based on beautiful furniture designs developed either by himself or artists working for Schmit.

Throughout his career Schmit appears to have kept workshops on the rue de Charonne in the centre of the furniture-making district, the Faubourg St Antoine. Maison Schmit received Gold Medals at the 1878 and 1889 Expositions Universelles in Paris, and it was always considered to make pieces of the finest quality.