Lot Essay
Although the overall design and construction of these chairs is of a type often associated with Thomas Chippendale, a number of comparable suites have recently been discovered that suggest several makers were working in a similar idiom.
Most significant of these features is the design of the arms which scroll down directly into the top of the leg. This does not appear on any provenanced Chippendale chairs where the arm joins the seatrail some distance back from the top of the front leg. This same leg and arm construction as here was used on a set of chairs at Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, that are now attributed to Mayhew and Ince (see: The Dictionary of English Furniture, Leeds, 1986, p. 596). A suite from Cobham Hall, Kent, also now attributed to them, shared this arm design with a husk-entwined flowerhead cresting (sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 19 November 1992, lot 104). It therefore seems impossible to make a confident attribution of this chair to any individual out of the leading London makers of the period
Most significant of these features is the design of the arms which scroll down directly into the top of the leg. This does not appear on any provenanced Chippendale chairs where the arm joins the seatrail some distance back from the top of the front leg. This same leg and arm construction as here was used on a set of chairs at Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, that are now attributed to Mayhew and Ince (see: The Dictionary of English Furniture, Leeds, 1986, p. 596). A suite from Cobham Hall, Kent, also now attributed to them, shared this arm design with a husk-entwined flowerhead cresting (sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 19 November 1992, lot 104). It therefore seems impossible to make a confident attribution of this chair to any individual out of the leading London makers of the period