Details
A PAIR OF GEORGE II WALNUT OPEN ARMCHAIRS with arched tapering heart-shaped backs, moulded and beaded toprails and crestings carved with fruiting vines issuing from flowerheads, pierced with radiating splats headed by angled paper-scrolls, the out-curved arms ending in rosettes, the fluted twisted supports with scallop shell bases, the padded lobed seats covered in associated polychrome petit point floral needlework on a blue ground on shaped and scrolled frames centred by foliate clasps on double-scrolled front legs naturalistically carved with flowers and rushes ending in in-scrolled foliate feet, the splayed back legs with pointed pad feet, the St Giles's chair labelled The British Antique Dealers' Association GOLDEN JUBILEE EXHIBITION VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM 1968 EXHIBIT No. 167, minor variations in the scale of the carving, the St Giles's chair with minor repairs and small chips to feet, the Bulteel chair with repairs to back, arm-supports and legs
The seats 20½in. (52cm.) wide; the backs 36in. (91.5cm.) high (2)
The seats 20½in. (52cm.) wide; the backs 36in. (91.5cm.) high (2)
Provenance
One chair (the illustrated and exhibited example) from the Collection of the Earl of Shaftesbury, KP, PC, GCVO, St. Giles's House, Wimborne, Dorset, sold Christie's London, 27 March 1952, lot 76, 900 gns. (#945) to G. Hannen for Samuel Messer; the other from the Collection of Major J.C. Bulteel, DSO, MC, sold Christie's London, 7 May 1953, lot 21, 650 gns. (#682 10s) to G. Hannen for Samuel Messer
Exhibited
B.A.D.A. Golden Jubilee Exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1968, no. 167 (Catalogue, fig. 99)