A SET OF TEN GEORGE II MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS, each with waved acanthus-carved toprail centred by a scallop-shell above a pierced vase-shaped splat carved with acanthus, a figure-of-eight and a flowerhead, the seats covered with pale-green silk floral damask, two with petit-point floral needlework, the seat-rails centred by scallop-shells and on cabriole legs headed by cabochons, on paw feet, with single batten holes, later back blocks, two with repairs to top of one back leg, one with repairs to top of two back legs, the seats numbered randomly up to 19, the chairs randomly up to 24, traces of an earlier nailed numbering, one chair inscribed in pencil Last Lime (10)

Details

A SET OF TEN GEORGE II MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS, each with waved acanthus-carved toprail centred by a scallop-shell above a pierced vase-shaped splat carved with acanthus, a figure-of-eight and a flowerhead, the seats covered with pale-green silk floral damask, two with petit-point floral needlework, the seat-rails centred by scallop-shells and on cabriole legs headed by cabochons, on paw feet, with single batten holes, later back blocks, two with repairs to top of one back leg, one with repairs to top of two back legs, the seats numbered randomly up to 19, the chairs randomly up to 24, traces of an earlier nailed numbering, one chair inscribed in pencil Last Lime (10)

Provenance

Part of a set of twenty-four possibly supplied to Sir George Savile, 7th Bt., Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire.
By descent at Rufford through
His brother Sir George Savile, 8th Bt. (d.1784)
His sister and heiress, Barbara (d.1797), wife of 4th Earl of Scarborough
Her grandson, John Lumley-Savile, 8th Earl of Scarborough (d.1857)
At some point in the 19th Century the set was split:
The eight chairs:
His natural son and heir of Rufford, Henry Savile (d.1881)
His brother John, 1st Baron Savile of Rufford (d.1896)
His nephew, John, 2nd Baron Savile of Rufford (d.1931)
His son, George, 3rd Baron Savile of Rufford (b.1919), by whom sold from Rufford, Christie's and Knight, Frank and Rutley house sale, 11 October 1938, lot 106
The two needlework chairs:
Sir Edward J. Dean Paul, Bt., sold in these Rooms, 10 March 1896, lot 810 (a set of six)
Leopold Hirsch, Esq., sold in these Rooms, 7 May 1934, lot 42 (a set of six)

Literature

'Rufford Abbey', Country Life, vol.XIV, 7 November 1903, pp.650-654, where one chair is visible in The Long Gallery

Lot Essay

The set was divided during the 19th Century. This almost certainly happened during the 1890's when the estate was hugely in debt and was then crippled by the newly-introduced death duties. Six chairs from the set were in one of the earliest formed collections of English furniture, that of Sir E.J. Dean Paul, Bt. They were subsequently in the collection of Leopold Hirsch, Esq.
It seems most probable that the additional pair of chairs in this set, now covered in needlework, were in the Dean Paul and Hirsch collections. This is also the likely recent provenance for a pair that are now in the Noel Terry collection at Fairfax House, York (see: P.Brown, The Noel Terry Collection of Furniture and Clocks, York, 1987, no.53). Both pairs were purchased from Malletts. The Rufford 1938 eight were covered in tapestry and the Dean Paul 1896 six in his characteristic 'stamped crimson velvet'. Thus Mr. Taudevin put together a set of ten comprising eight from the Rufford Abbey 1938 sale and a pair sold by Leopold Hirsch in 1934.

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