BY G. J. MORANT, IN THE FRENCH TASTE

This French 'cabriolet' chair, serpentined in the Louis XV manner, was commissioned by George Granville Leveson-Gower (1786-1861), 2nd Duke of Sutherland for his palatial London mansion, which had been decorated by the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt in the 'Louis Quatorze' style after the fashion of a Parisian 'hôtel'. Previously known as York House, it had been renamed Stafford House following its acquisition in the late 1820s by his father George Granville Leveson-Gower (1758-1833), 1st Duke of Sutherland, when Marquis of Stafford. The chair formed part of a large suite of seat furniture supplied by George John Morant of 91 New Bond Street, interior decorator and upholsterer to Queen Victoria. George John Morant had been employed at Stafford House from 1836, while trading in partnership with his father as George Morant and Son. He completed the ameublement begun in the late 1820s by the court upholsterer Nicolas Morel, and also that instigated from 1834 by the upholsterer Desiré Dellier. The Duchess of Sutherland also played an important role in the furnishing of Stafford House as is demonstrated by her design of a table, which Morant exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (The Art Journal, Illustrated Catalogue, London, 1851, p. 34). Some of the Morant chairs are illustrated in situ in Bedford Lemere's photographs of Stafford House taken in 1895 (Yorke, op. cit., fig. 2).