Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)
Zsuzsa MARGITTAL: La Fontaine’s Fables and Other Animal Tales in the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ Collection
with Chinoiserie scenes.7 This thematic arrangement has its counterexamples, however, which can be found among furniture pieces in the Museum of Applied Arts, too. The illustrations of Jean-Baptiste Oudry may be direct prototypes of the animal depictions referred to above. The deservedly famous engravings in the 18th-century edition of La Fontaine’s fables (published in several volumes by Desaint & Saillant and Durand beginning in 1755) were made after Oudry’s drawings, as were the tapestry designs made while Oudry was designer and later, from 1734 onwards, associate director in charge of artistic matters at the Beauvais Manufactory.8 The identification of various motifs, however, presents several problems. Although the images were based on Oudry’s drawing, the engravers of the printing blocks were responsible for the final look of the figures. As a result, the various scenes on one piece of textile, although all based on Oudry’s drawings, could each be traced to a different engraver. For example, engravings by both Pierre Aveline and Louis Le Grand in Desaint & Saillant and Durand’s edition of La Fontaine fables may have served as sources for different motifs on the same textile.9 The related pieces of furniture in the Museum of Applied Arts, dating to the second half of the 19th century, are late examples of the tradition discussed above. The armchair (inv. no. 53.1401.1) with a depiction of ‘The Frogs Asking a King’ (Les gre- nouilles qui demandent un roi III/4) on the seat can be linked to the tradition of placing a fable illustration on the seat and a figurai depiction on the back. This practice, considered typical, is contradicted by another piece in the museum’s collection: the settee (inv. no. 53.1404.1) that displays a well- known scene (the fox offering a shallow dish to the stork) from ‘The Fox and the Stork’ {Le renard et la cigogne 1/18) on its back. The seat cover also contains scenes selected from several fables. The same episode from ‘The Fox and the Stork’ appears—more finely executed—on the seat cover of the second settee (inv. no. 53.1405.1)10 (Fig. 1); an illustration by Oudry may have been the prototype for this image of the disappointed stork turning his head away from the shallow dish." The scene on the backrest is almost an exact mirror image of that on the back of the third settee (inv. no. 53.1403.1), whose seat cover depicts the ‘The Lion and the Rat’ {Le lion et le rat II/11) (Fig. 2). The same or Furniture with upholstery depicting scenes from La Fontaine’s fables in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts Inventory no. seat back 1. Armchair 53.1401.1 The Frogs Asking a King Allegorical scene 2. Armchair 53.1399.1 The Fox and the Stork Figurai scene 1. Settee 53.1404.1 Scene from several fables The Fox and the Stork 2. Settee 53.1405.1 The Fox and the Stork Genre scene 3. Settee 53.1403.1 The Lion and the Rat Genre scene (mirror image of the above) 4. Settee 53.1406.1 The Wolf Turned Shepherd Genre scene 40
