CIRCA 1770

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE III GREEN-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT OPEN ARMCHAIRS
CIRCA 1770
Each with medallion padded back and serpentine seats, covered in striped floral silk, the back centred by a ribbon-tied patera, the outswept arms with foliate-carved scroll terminals above a pearled serpentine seat rail, on leaf-carved turned tapering fluted legs, the underside of one with blue-bordered paper label inscribed in ink 'Lord Farquhar or L. Neumann Esq. [crossed out] box 16', pegged construction, redecorated with traces of earlier green decoration (2)

Provenance

Lord Farquhar.
Frederick Poke, Esq; Sotheby's, London, 11 May 1979, lot 51.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The light French 'cabriolet' framed chairs, with Etruscan-pearled rails and 'Roman' medallioned backs crowned by poetic 'Apollo' sunflowered paterae, are designed in the antique fashion promoted around 1770 by George III's Rome-trained architect Robert Adam (d. 1792). Related patera-crowned chairs were supplied in 1771 under Adam's direction for a drawing-room at Audley End, Essex (J. Cornforth, 'Audley End, Essex', Country Life, 27 December 1990, pp. 32 and 33). The chairs' design relates closely to Adam's 1780 pattern for seats for Sir Abraham Hume's London mansion in Hill Street (E. Harris, The Furniture of Robert Adam, London, 1963, fig. 123).

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