A MID-VICTORIAN WALNUT SOCIABLE
A MID-VICTORIAN WALNUT SOCIABLE

Details
A MID-VICTORIAN WALNUT SOCIABLE
Of shamrock shape, with padded back and seat covered in light-green silk, on ring-turned tapering legs, brass caps and castors, one leg replaced and originally with two further legs in the middle; and
A REGENCY SIMULATED-BAMBOO GILTWOOD CHAIR
With padded low toprail and rounded rectangular seat covered in foliate material, on raked legs, stamped to the underside 'EN TW No. 8737' twice and 'No 8737', traces of simulated rosewood grained decoration, the front legs with loose construction joints
The sociable: 29 in. (73.5 cm.) high; 56 in. (142.5 cm.) diam. (2)
Provenance
The sociable: Mrs. Nancy Lancaster, in the Saloon at Haseley Court, Oxfordshire, probably acquired in the mid-1950s, but possibly as early as the late 1920s for Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire.
Sold by Mrs. Lancaster, in these Rooms, 17 October 1974, lot 115 (170 gns).
The chair: Mrs Nancy Lancaster, Haseley Court, Oxfordshire.
Literature
For the sociable:
J. Cornforth, The Inspiration of the Past, London, 1985, p. 126, pl. 127.
C. Jones, Colefax and Fowler: The Best in English Interior Decoration, London, 1989, pp. 31-2.
R. Becker, Nancy Lancaster: Her Life, Her World, Her Art, New York, 1996, p. 355: 'At the centre of the room, underneath the chandelier, I put a Victorian whatnot, what you call a 'conversational' or a 'sociable'. The thing I laughed at when I first went to Kelmarsh I must have digested over the years, because in my mind it had become a chic little number'.

Lot Essay

Both the sociable and the small chair in this lot belonged to Nancy Lancaster, born in Virginia and one of the most influential decorators of the 20th Century. She was a huge influence on John Fowler and the style of decoration and furniture arranging that they developed together remains a strong force in English decorating. Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire was her first major house in England, taken with her husband Ronald Tree for the hunting. Her last house was Haseley Court in Oxfordshire.
Chester Jones wrote of the Saloon at Haseley: 'The only acknowledgment to order is the large upholstered sociable, ruched, tufted and skirted in the palest sea-green silk, centred beneath the chandelier... This above all is a 'lived-in' room, one that is loved and used to the full'.
The unusual painted velvet on the seat of the small chair relates to stencilled American 'Theorem' pictures.

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