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Lot Essay
Based on surviving documentation and invoices, the firm of Chippendale is the only cabinet-making firm known to have supplied furnishings to Paxton in the 18th century. However, the 1774 bill totalling £405.6.10 "relates to only one and not necessarily the most important of many orders placed with the firm over a period of at least fifteen years" (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 271). Following the discovery of correspondence between Ninian Home and Chippendale, Haig & Co., Gilbert argued plausibly that as the firm was still supplying furniture in 1789-1791 this would provide a "valid context for attributions based on stylistic analogy". The Chippendale connexion is strengthened on the basis that a suite of ivory and green-painted chairs was supplied for the best bed and dressing-rooms at Paxton in 1774 (ibid., p. 100, figs. 164-166). The present set of chairs is a candidate for inclusion in the corpus of the Younger Chippendale's work at Paxton.
Surviving invoices surfaced recently which show that Chippendale, Haig & Co. supplied furniture to Sir Ninian Home at Paxton between 1786-1787 [document reference SRO GD 267/31/70]. However, these invoices do not include references to the present chairs (correspondence from Christopher Gilbert, 2 November 1992).
The design of the chairs follow most closely a pattern known to have been produced by Gillows, and also published in Hepplewhite's Guide (see below). Seat-furniture supplied by the Younger Chippendale to other clients follows fashionable patterns of the 1780s, for example a set of twenty dining-chairs which follow a likely Gillows Wyatt design, formerly at Normanton Hall and illustrated in Gilbert, op.cit., vol. II, p. 102, fig. 171 (cf. a set of eight armchairs of this pattern sold by The Lord Huntingfield, Christie's, London, 1 July 2004, lot 40) and a hall chair at Newby Hall which is inspired by Gillows' 'star-back' and 'new Catherine wheel' chair-back designs (ibid., p. 103, fig. 174 and cf., Stuart, op. cit., vol. I., p. 171, plate 130-131).
The chairbacks are of Grecian pelta-shield form with palm-flower splats radiating from a sunflower medallion and derive from a 'bar-back' sofa pattern published in A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788, pl. 26, and on a 'Camel back stay rail' chair featured in the late 1780s archives of Gillows (L. Boynton, ed., Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 260 and S. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster & London, vol. I, 2008, p. 165, pl. 123).
Surviving invoices surfaced recently which show that Chippendale, Haig & Co. supplied furniture to Sir Ninian Home at Paxton between 1786-1787 [document reference SRO GD 267/31/70]. However, these invoices do not include references to the present chairs (correspondence from Christopher Gilbert, 2 November 1992).
The design of the chairs follow most closely a pattern known to have been produced by Gillows, and also published in Hepplewhite's Guide (see below). Seat-furniture supplied by the Younger Chippendale to other clients follows fashionable patterns of the 1780s, for example a set of twenty dining-chairs which follow a likely Gillows Wyatt design, formerly at Normanton Hall and illustrated in Gilbert, op.cit., vol. II, p. 102, fig. 171 (cf. a set of eight armchairs of this pattern sold by The Lord Huntingfield, Christie's, London, 1 July 2004, lot 40) and a hall chair at Newby Hall which is inspired by Gillows' 'star-back' and 'new Catherine wheel' chair-back designs (ibid., p. 103, fig. 174 and cf., Stuart, op. cit., vol. I., p. 171, plate 130-131).
The chairbacks are of Grecian pelta-shield form with palm-flower splats radiating from a sunflower medallion and derive from a 'bar-back' sofa pattern published in A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788, pl. 26, and on a 'Camel back stay rail' chair featured in the late 1780s archives of Gillows (L. Boynton, ed., Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 260 and S. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster & London, vol. I, 2008, p. 165, pl. 123).