Lot Essay
The chair with hermed legs has its serpentined-cartouche back and seat enriched with with veil-drapery. It is likely to have been executed for Heaton Hall, Lancashire under the direction of the architect James Wyatt (d. 1815) and to have formed part of the furnishings commissioned from the Oxford Street firm of Gillow of London and Lancaster by Sir Thomas Egerton, Baron Grey de Wilton, later 1st Earl of Wilton (d. 1814). They supplied this saloon seat furniture costing £127.0.0. between 1777 and 1779, and its veil-drapery would have harmonised with that of vestal-heads inserted in the entrance-screen columns and ceiling of the room, and its laurels with those wreathing the Muse of Poetry above the matelpiece. It can be also identified in part with six chairs and two sofas listed in the 1902 sale catalogue (Guide to Heaton Hall, Manchester, 1988). Six more chairs were sold by Seymour William, 7th Earl of Wilton in these Rooms on 14 July 1949, lot 76. The second chair with its voluted acanthus scrolls might originally have formed part of a suite from an adjoining room at Heaton Hall.
Egerton also patronised Gillows' Oxford Street neighbour Caleb Jeacock. He was also paid in 1777 for the French fashion white and gold suite in the state apartment, and the character of the saloon chairs raises the possibility that he was involved with their manufacture.
Egerton also patronised Gillows' Oxford Street neighbour Caleb Jeacock. He was also paid in 1777 for the French fashion white and gold suite in the state apartment, and the character of the saloon chairs raises the possibility that he was involved with their manufacture.