OUR HERITAGE: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

The 2020 Tectona catalogue heralded the arrival of the Grande Écurie-Versailles bench developed jointly with the Château de Versailles. The starting point of the project was two oak benches listed in the inventory of the Château’s heritage collections. The first had previously appeared in an inventory of furniture at the stables of the Château Royal de Saint-Cloud and was moved to Versailles before 1855 and thereby escaped the bombing and destruction of the Château during the war of 1870. The second was listed among the furniture of Petites Écuries de Versailles, was sent to the Garde-Meuble Royal before 1833 and rejoined the Château de Versailles during the Second Republic (1848-1852).

CLASSIC & CONTEMPORARY

First, the two oak benches were fabricated at the workshop in Normandy. The first model was chosen as our master design primarily for its elegant legs, in the gainé style, narrowing towards the bottom to provide a contemporary touch while evoking the classicism of Maison Jacob-Desmalter, the main supplier to palaces from the mid-18th century. The apparent simplicity belies the painstaking work that was required, particularly the different thicknesses of the wood for the legs. With the aid of a tool developed by the Meilleur Ouvrier de France working at Tectona, profile drawings guided the manufacture of the legs with a very low tolerance, millimetric precision. One difference in the modern version is that the seat section is made from wood rather than velvet. However like the original it employs mortise-and-tenon joints to confer utmost solidity to the bench, which helps it to withstand continuous use by visitors to the Château de Versailles.