.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The cabriolet chairs, designed in the George III French antique fashion of the 1770s, have Apollonian palms flowering their palm-wrapped backs, whose serpentined cartouches also rise from waved and flowered volutes. Columnar legs, collared by Venus pearl-strings and raised on Pan's reeded urns, support the cupid-bowed rails, whose fluted ribbon-guilloches tie Apollonian sunflowered tablets.
The ribbon-guilloche's Grecian pattern appears to derive from Salonikas Incantada or The Propylaea, Athens as introduced for chairs designed in the early 1760s for Spencer House, London by the artist architect James Stuart (d. 1788) (J. Stuart, The Antiquities of Athens, vol.III, 1794, chap. 9, pl. III; and Susan Weber Soros ed., James Athenian Stuart, New York, 2006, fig. 10-32). A prototype for the present chairs can also be traced in a large cabriolet chair identified as executed under Stuart's direction for Lady Spencer's apartment by the Golden Square chair-maker John Gordon, who later formed a partnership with John Taitt (fl. 1748-96) (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1982, A/7). Amongst other prototypes are Messrs. Gordon and Taitt's cabriolet chairs executed around 1770 for Audley End, Essex to the design of the court architect Robert Adam (d.1793) (G. Beard and C. Gilbert (eds), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers: 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p. 355 and 356: and J. D. Williams, Audley End, Chelmsford, 1966, pl. XII). In turn the present chairs would appear to be precursors for the closely related cabriolet chairs supplied around 1770 for the Adam-designed drawing rooms at Saltram, Devon and Harewood, Yorkshire by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker and upholder Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, figs. 188 and 190).
The ribbon-guilloche's Grecian pattern appears to derive from Salonikas Incantada or The Propylaea, Athens as introduced for chairs designed in the early 1760s for Spencer House, London by the artist architect James Stuart (d. 1788) (J. Stuart, The Antiquities of Athens, vol.III, 1794, chap. 9, pl. III; and Susan Weber Soros ed., James Athenian Stuart, New York, 2006, fig. 10-32). A prototype for the present chairs can also be traced in a large cabriolet chair identified as executed under Stuart's direction for Lady Spencer's apartment by the Golden Square chair-maker John Gordon, who later formed a partnership with John Taitt (fl. 1748-96) (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1982, A/7). Amongst other prototypes are Messrs. Gordon and Taitt's cabriolet chairs executed around 1770 for Audley End, Essex to the design of the court architect Robert Adam (d.1793) (G. Beard and C. Gilbert (eds), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers: 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p. 355 and 356: and J. D. Williams, Audley End, Chelmsford, 1966, pl. XII). In turn the present chairs would appear to be precursors for the closely related cabriolet chairs supplied around 1770 for the Adam-designed drawing rooms at Saltram, Devon and Harewood, Yorkshire by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker and upholder Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, figs. 188 and 190).