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Lot Essay
This pair forms part of a group which differs only in the details of the carving. Others from the group include: a set of seven chairs, one of which is illustrated in M. Harris & Sons, A Catalogue and Index of Old Furniture and Works of Decorative Art, part II, n.d., p. 159; a single example from the Fogg Art Museum and Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, sold Sotheby's New York, 16-17 October 1987, lot 186; and another pair sold Sotheby's New York, 25 April 1992, lot 489. A further example, also from the C. D. Rotch collection, is illustrated in H. Cescinsky, The Old-World House, 1924, p. 72. Cescinsky illustrates another chair in his English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, 1909, vol. I, p. 85, fig. 112 which may be the same chair that was advertised by Messrs Hampton and Sons of Pall Mall in The Connoisseur, February 1907, where they were seeking matching examples.
Although these chairs are not definitively Irish, they do have a graceful serpentined apron, carved with foliage, which was a common feature of Irish furniture of the same period, particularly on card and side tables.
C. D. ROTCH
Mr. C. D. Rotch of the Elms, Teddington was a collector in the early part of the 20th century who, like Percival D. Griffiths and William Randolph Hearst, was influenced by the furniture connoisseur and dealer R. W. Symonds. Following the prevailing taste of the time, the collection focused on early to mid-Georgian carved mahogany examples and was later gifted to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (see R. W. Symonds, 'Mr. C. D. Rotch's Collection of Furniture', Country Life, 7 June 1924, pp. 937-39).
Although these chairs are not definitively Irish, they do have a graceful serpentined apron, carved with foliage, which was a common feature of Irish furniture of the same period, particularly on card and side tables.
C. D. ROTCH
Mr. C. D. Rotch of the Elms, Teddington was a collector in the early part of the 20th century who, like Percival D. Griffiths and William Randolph Hearst, was influenced by the furniture connoisseur and dealer R. W. Symonds. Following the prevailing taste of the time, the collection focused on early to mid-Georgian carved mahogany examples and was later gifted to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (see R. W. Symonds, 'Mr. C. D. Rotch's Collection of Furniture', Country Life, 7 June 1924, pp. 937-39).