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Lot Essay
These Grecian-scrolled and squab-cushioned chairs are enriched with golden bronze bas-reliefs that evoke the poetry-deity Apollo, and reflect the French fashion promoted around 1800 by George IV, as Prince of Wales. Appropriate for a room-of-entertainment, the chairs are richly embellished with golden sacrificial libation-paterae. They embellish the Ionic voluted scrolls of their reed-inlaid tablet-rails, and form imbricated guilloches in the sunken flutes of their taper-hermed legs; while palms accompany the sunflowered paterae displayed in the cross-rails and recalling Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' and his history of Apollo and his love Clytie. Laurel-wreathed sunflower paterae wreath the seat-rails, which are further flowered with Roman acanthus.
Library chairs of this pattern at Crichel, Dorset would have harmonised with its ormolu-enriched statuary marble chimney-piece, which was designed for H.C. Strut in the early l9th century Grecian fashion and embellised with caryatic vase-bearing vestals (C. Hussey, English Country House; Mid Georgian, p.153. 1956, p. 153; and H. Avery Tipping, English Homes, Period VI, vol 1, London, 1924, p.54, fig 84).
Related ormolu-enriched chairs were commissioned by the Lichfield MP Thomas Anson (d.1818) around the time of his elevation as Viscount Anson and Baron Soberton (1806) and at a period that he was expecting to entertain the Prince of Wales at Shugborough in Staffordshire. Anson, assisted by the architect Samuel Wyatt (d.1807), aggrandised the villa's dining-room as an Athenian banqueting saloon. Its marbled column-lined walls incorporated bronze-enriched marble chimney-pieces, that were conceived in Wyatt's French/antique manner, and executed by Charles Rossi (d.1839), 'sculptor' to the Prince of Wales (J. Martin Robinson, Shugborough, London, 1989, p.39). The present chairs relate to the Saloon's bronze-enriched mahogany seat-furniture, which was supplied by the celebrated Grosvenor Street Upholsterers Charles Smith & Co. This firm, while in partnership with William Key, had been amongst the subscribers to Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary, 1803; and it is possible that Charles Smith was the 'Mr.Smith' subscriber to his 'Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer's and General Artist's Encyclopaedia', launched in 1804. The present chair pattern relates to a number of Sheraton's Grecian designs, and its scrolled tablet appears alongside an 'Apollo's Chair' on his 'Consul Chair' engraving in the 'Encyclopaedia' (pl. 10 of Chairs).
Interestingly chairs of this exact pattern can be seen in situ in the Dining Room at Shugborough today (Martin Robinson, ibid.), although they are not thought to be original to the house. However, much of the furniture from Regency Shugborough was sold in the Shugborough Hall sale held by George Robins in 1842 (1-12 August, lots 16-25) and indeed some of Anson's Saloon seat-furniture, described as having 'scroll backs' and 'or-molu mountings' was included (two of its armchairs were probably those sold by Lord Croft, Sotheby's London, Croft Castle Sale, 6 June 2002, lot 73).
Library chairs of this pattern at Crichel, Dorset would have harmonised with its ormolu-enriched statuary marble chimney-piece, which was designed for H.C. Strut in the early l9th century Grecian fashion and embellised with caryatic vase-bearing vestals (C. Hussey, English Country House; Mid Georgian, p.153. 1956, p. 153; and H. Avery Tipping, English Homes, Period VI, vol 1, London, 1924, p.54, fig 84).
Related ormolu-enriched chairs were commissioned by the Lichfield MP Thomas Anson (d.1818) around the time of his elevation as Viscount Anson and Baron Soberton (1806) and at a period that he was expecting to entertain the Prince of Wales at Shugborough in Staffordshire. Anson, assisted by the architect Samuel Wyatt (d.1807), aggrandised the villa's dining-room as an Athenian banqueting saloon. Its marbled column-lined walls incorporated bronze-enriched marble chimney-pieces, that were conceived in Wyatt's French/antique manner, and executed by Charles Rossi (d.1839), 'sculptor' to the Prince of Wales (J. Martin Robinson, Shugborough, London, 1989, p.39). The present chairs relate to the Saloon's bronze-enriched mahogany seat-furniture, which was supplied by the celebrated Grosvenor Street Upholsterers Charles Smith & Co. This firm, while in partnership with William Key, had been amongst the subscribers to Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary, 1803; and it is possible that Charles Smith was the 'Mr.Smith' subscriber to his 'Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer's and General Artist's Encyclopaedia', launched in 1804. The present chair pattern relates to a number of Sheraton's Grecian designs, and its scrolled tablet appears alongside an 'Apollo's Chair' on his 'Consul Chair' engraving in the 'Encyclopaedia' (pl. 10 of Chairs).
Interestingly chairs of this exact pattern can be seen in situ in the Dining Room at Shugborough today (Martin Robinson, ibid.), although they are not thought to be original to the house. However, much of the furniture from Regency Shugborough was sold in the Shugborough Hall sale held by George Robins in 1842 (1-12 August, lots 16-25) and indeed some of Anson's Saloon seat-furniture, described as having 'scroll backs' and 'or-molu mountings' was included (two of its armchairs were probably those sold by Lord Croft, Sotheby's London, Croft Castle Sale, 6 June 2002, lot 73).