.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This medallion-backed pattern, with a richly-beaded frame, relates extremely closely to the 1770s work in the Louis XVI style of the Berkeley Square upholsterer, John Linnell (d.1796). The most closely related securely attributed suite is one in the Tapestry Room at Osterley Park, Middlesex, that is better known for its Gobelins covering and which was supplied by Linnell to Robert Child in 1775-6. Those chairs share the 'pearled' lower frames and the stiff, rather upright, front arm profile. It is tempting to associate this arm-profile with Linnell exclusively; it appears on a room sketch with cabriole chairs arranged along the wall in his sketch-book at the Victoria and Albert Museum (H. Hayward, 'The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Furniture History, 1967, fig. 168). The rose-head cresting is shared with a suite that is confidently attributed to Linnell and which was supplied circa 1775 to Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Bt. The latter suite was subsequently sold by Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 11th Bt., Sotheby's, London, 19 November 1993, lot 87. Helena Hayward has noted how Linnell was inspired by the chair-frames of Louis Delanois and the rose-head cresting was a very popular motif of his (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, vol. I, p. 83 and vol. II, p. 47, fig. 92).
A set of five chairs of this model, conceivably part of the same set, were almost certainly supplied to the 2nd Earl of Darlington for Cleveland House, St. James's Square, and subsequently sold in Christie's house sale at Raby Castle, 10-11 October 1994, lot 214.
A set of five chairs of this model, conceivably part of the same set, were almost certainly supplied to the 2nd Earl of Darlington for Cleveland House, St. James's Square, and subsequently sold in Christie's house sale at Raby Castle, 10-11 October 1994, lot 214.