Jacques Gondoin (1737-1818)

Designer of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne

Architect and designer of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, Jacques Gondoin was endowed with great creativity. He contributed decisively to the introduction of the neoclassical taste into the royal interiors.

Jacques Gondoin was born in 1737, the son of a royal gardener at the château of Choisy. Trained at the Royal Academy of Architecture, he benefited from the teaching of Jacques-François Blondel (1705–1774), an architect and Enlightenment theorist. In 1758, Gondoin won the Academy’s second prize, before undertaking the traditional stay in Rome. From 1761 to 1762, he discovered the remains of the ancient city, which he studied and drew with care. There, he made the complete survey of the famous Villa Hadriana, which his friend and colleague Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), visited regularly. To complete his training, Gondoin then undertook a journey to Holland and England in 1766. On his return to Paris, he received the most important architectural commission of his career: the construction of the École de chirurgie in Paris. Built between 1769 and 1775, it was immediately celebrated by his contemporaries as one of the most modern achievements of its time. Commentators saw in it the very essence of ancient architecture.

From 1767 onwards, the Royal Garde-Meuble made use of Gondoin’s services. Two years later, he was officially appointed architect and designer of the Garde-Meuble. Pierre-Élisabeth de Fontanieu was then at the head of this institution in charge of furnishing the royal residences. He gave his orders to the designer, who conceived the various projects before leaving execution to the craftsmen. For the most important commissions, Gondoin imagined every detail. The set of chairs and bergères he created in 1780 for Marie-Antoinette’s Belvedere Pavilion at the Petit Trianon thus required a study of more than four months, several times submitted to the judgment of the Queen and of Fontanieu. To present his projects, Gondoin made large-scale drawings. He then had a miniature wax model produced and a full-size plaster version completed with wax ornaments.
Fontanieu entrusted him mainly with the design of joinery furniture, as well as certain silk patterns. For the Queen’s inner cabinet at Versailles, Gondoin designed in 1779 a pattern of foliage scrolls and medallions, woven in Lyon by Jean Charton. A fragment of this silk is today preserved at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, and a rewoven version adorns the walls of the Queen’s Billiard Room at Versailles.

From 1769 to 1784, Jacques Gondoin truly held the role of artistic director of royal furniture. He received bold commissions that drew on his pronounced taste for the Antique. The queen thus requested, for the furniture of the Belvedere Pavilion, seats “in the newest taste.” Since his stay in Italy, the designer had mastered the ornamental vocabulary of Greece and Rome. He appropriated it in an original way, transforming the uprights of the seats into flaming torches, the arm supports into sirens, and adorning their rails with friezes of flowers or deeply carved scrolls. Gondoin thus contributed to the elaboration of a sophisticated neoclassical taste, which can also be found in the creations of the craftsmen working under the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne. This center table from the collections of Galerie Léage evokes this production, characterized by abundant sculpted decoration and original ornaments, such as these legs in the form of quivers of arrows.

Gondoin created numerous pieces of furniture for the sovereigns. In 1769, he designed for Louis XV a set of twenty-four guéridons for the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. He also conceived the seats of the King’s Gaming Room at Versailles in 1774. Five years later, he devoted himself to the furniture of the Queen’s inner cabinet. For each ensemble, Gondoin employed an originality and richness without equal.
The designer also worked for the royal entourage. He provided joinery models for Madame du Barry at Louveciennes and at the château of Fontainebleau. The Louvre Museum preserves a rare wax model of the bed he designed for her apartment in that royal residence. This carefully composed model proposes an erudite iconography combining a seashell and vine shoots.

In 1784, Gondoin left the service of the Garde-Meuble. He continued his activity as architect and designer, and retained a real influence after the French Revolution. A member of the Institut in 1795, he pursued his career under the Empire and was entrusted with the realization of the Vendôme Column.

Bibliography
Marie-Noël de Gary (dir.), Musée Nissim de Camondo. La demeure d’un collectionneur, Les Arts Décoratifs, 2007
Nadine Gasc, Gérard Mabille, Le Musée Nissim de Camondo, Albin Michel, 1991

We are looking forward to welcome you at FAB PARIS 2025 from September 20 to 24, stand C4.

Jacques Gondoin (1737−1818)