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Lot Essay
The elegant French 'cabriolet' chairs, with herm-tapered and palm flowered legs, reflect the 'antique' style introduced in fashionable George III parlours and drawing rooms in the 1770s. The rosettes at the top of the legs on these chairs feature in other stamped pieces by B. Harmer, including a pair of armchairs illustreated in C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, 1700-1840, 1996, p. 257, fig. 471.
A versatile and prodigious chairmaker, B. Harmer worked for the leading English interior decoration firms of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, and although his full identity remains unknown, he was undoubtedly the master of a large workshop and subcontracted leading cabinetmakers such as Marsh and Tatham. His stamp appears on a number of highly-fashionable chairs dating from c. 1795 to 1810, including hall chairs at Petworth and a magnificent suite of dolphin seat furniture attributed to Marsh and Tatham from Powderham Castle (sold at Christie's, London, 5 July, 1990, lots 50 and 51 and on 5 December, 1991, lots 222 and 223).
A versatile and prodigious chairmaker, B. Harmer worked for the leading English interior decoration firms of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, and although his full identity remains unknown, he was undoubtedly the master of a large workshop and subcontracted leading cabinetmakers such as Marsh and Tatham. His stamp appears on a number of highly-fashionable chairs dating from c. 1795 to 1810, including hall chairs at Petworth and a magnificent suite of dolphin seat furniture attributed to Marsh and Tatham from Powderham Castle (sold at Christie's, London, 5 July, 1990, lots 50 and 51 and on 5 December, 1991, lots 222 and 223).