Lot Essay
These chairs exemplify the popularitiy of French taste in English furniture in the late 1760s and early 1770s. Leading cabinetmakers such as William Linnell and Thomas Chippendale designed various models for 'French chairs' during this period. The chairs' overall design related to patterns published by Thomas Chippendale in his The Gentleman and & Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1762, pl. XXIII. A set of related chairs with similar molded frames in the French taste was delivered by Linnell to William Drake at Shardeloes in 1768 (illustrated in H. Hayward and P. Kirkhaum, William and John Linnell: Eighteenth Century Furniture Makers, New York, 1980, p. 34, fig. 61).