Lot Essay
The richly-carved chair, with its cluster-column supports, cusped lancet arches and fretted quatrefoils etc, epitomises the elegant Gothic style introduced at Windsor Castle by the architect James Wyatt (d.1813) for George, Prince Regent, later King George IV. It formed part of the baronial banqueting hall furnishings commissioned by John, 4th Earl of Breadalbane (d.1834) for Taymouth Castle, Perthshire, which had been designed in 1805/1806 by the London-based architect Archibald Elliot. Its style corresponds to that of the hall chimney piece, and is likely to have been chosen in 1809 during the time that the plasterer Francis Bernasconi was stuccoing the ceilings. That of the staircase derived from the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey and related to one recently introduced by him at Ashridge, Hertfordshire to the design of James Wyatt. The chair formed part of a suite including armchairs, that corresponded to the patterns for a single Gothic chair and armchair, for which the upholsterers and cabinet-makers, Messrs. Newton & Son of Wardour Street were invoiced for £29.5 on the 10th July 1810 by Edward Wyatt (d.1833) of Oxford Street. The celebrated 'carver and gilder to King George III's Office of Works' was in 1807 employed by George, Prince of Wales, later George IV at Carlton House. Like Bernasconi, he worked here and at Ashridge to designs of his cousin James Wyatt, who was Surveyor General of King George III's Office of Works. On 2 March 1822 Edward Wyatt further invoiced a single chair and armchair of the same pattern, which was executed for Taymouth 'in hard black wood....£48.18.6'. These may have been intended for the dining-room. A single 'coromandel wood' chair was listed in the 1922 sale held at Taymouth, together with seven 'carved oak Gothic chairs, triple arch backs, cluster column legs, seats in velvet' (see G. Ellwood, James Newton, Furniture History, 1995, Appendix VII; and fig.38, which illustrates a chair while still at Taymouth). Although James Newton was largely responsible for the furnishing of Taymouth, it is not clear whether he or Wyatt actually invented this chair pattern, but in view of its close relationship to a suite designed by James Wyatt about 1805 for Windsor Castle, it seems that he may deserve the credit (see F. Collard, Regency Furniture, Woodbridge, 1985, p.165).