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Lot Essay
This magnificent carved banquette seat is conceived in the George II ‘Britannia Romanum’ fashion promoted by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (d. 1753), and designed by his protégé, William Kent (d. 1748). It formed part of an important matching set comprising banquette and four stools commissioned by Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney of Castlemaine (d. 1750) to furnish the 'Drawing Room' of his recently built Roman-style villa at Wanstead, Essex.
The pattern derived from Kent's 'love seats' or Venus-headed settees, intended for Wanstead's 'Banqueting Hall', and evolved from the antique or Renaissance sgabello seats associated with Inigo Jones (d.1652). The banquette sold from the 1822 Wanstead House sale, from the 'Grand Saloon', lot 7, ‘A massive rich carved and gilt Conversation Stool, with bordered squab, in beautiful crimson damask, edged with silk cord, the panel handsomely ornamented with female head in the centre, and acorn festoons, on raffle-leaf scroll truss feet and balls, extra crimson ground chints case, lined white calico, 4-feet-3 long, by 1-foot-10 wide’ (Mr. Robins, Catalogue ...). It was sold to 'Gazelee' for £6.12.6; this was either George Gasley, 'antique furniture dealer’ of 93 Newman Street, London, active in the 1820s-30s, or Sir Stephen Gaselee (d.1839), Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and governor of the Foundling Hospital, of 13 Montagu Place, Russell Square and 77 Guildford Street (directories of the period record Sir Stephen as the sole person with this unusual surname).
The remaining four stools from the set, lots 8-11, measure ‘3-feet by 1-foot-10’ (lot 8 sold for £6, lot 9 for £5, and lots 10 and 11 together for £11.16). Two of these were purchased by the connoisseur and Wardour Street 'curiosity dealer', John Swaby, whose own collection was sold from Torriano Place, Kentish Town, by Mr. Phillips in March 1860; while one other was purchased in the name of 'German’. One of the stools subsequently sold from the collection of Graham Baron Ash, Esq., Wingfield Castle, Norfolk, Christie's house sale, 30 May 1980, lot 182, and thereafter Christie’s London, 24 April 2008, lot 340, £162,500 (inc. premium). This latter stool is illustrated in Ed. S. Weber, William Kent, Designing Georgian Britain (New Haven and London, 2014, p. 457, fig. 17.16, and pp. 474-475), the book published in association with the current William Kent exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (22 March-13 July 2014), and is included in the exhibition.
The scroll legs carved with acanthus and fish scales linked by acanthus and oak festoons of the present banquette and stools corresponds closely to a set of Kent settees from Wanstead House, now at Wilton House, Salisbury, purchased by the 11th Earl of Pembroke and his second wife, the Duchess, Catherine Woronzow, from the 1822 sale (op. cit., p. 474, and p. 454, fig. 17.10).
Although there is no record of the cabinet-maker at Wanstead House, James Richards, the principal carver of the Office of Works and a frequent Kent collaborator, has been suggested as the craftsman of another set of early seat-furniture designed by Kent at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Another potential candidate for the Wanstead set is Thomas Roberts, the Royal chair-maker, who also supplied upholstery at Houghton.
A related pair of giltwood stools attributed to Kent and with confronting sphinxes, sold , The Property of a Nobleman, Christie's, London, 17 March 1977, lot 12..
The pattern derived from Kent's 'love seats' or Venus-headed settees, intended for Wanstead's 'Banqueting Hall', and evolved from the antique or Renaissance sgabello seats associated with Inigo Jones (d.1652). The banquette sold from the 1822 Wanstead House sale, from the 'Grand Saloon', lot 7, ‘A massive rich carved and gilt Conversation Stool, with bordered squab, in beautiful crimson damask, edged with silk cord, the panel handsomely ornamented with female head in the centre, and acorn festoons, on raffle-leaf scroll truss feet and balls, extra crimson ground chints case, lined white calico, 4-feet-3 long, by 1-foot-10 wide’ (Mr. Robins, Catalogue ...). It was sold to 'Gazelee' for £6.12.6; this was either George Gasley, 'antique furniture dealer’ of 93 Newman Street, London, active in the 1820s-30s, or Sir Stephen Gaselee (d.1839), Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and governor of the Foundling Hospital, of 13 Montagu Place, Russell Square and 77 Guildford Street (directories of the period record Sir Stephen as the sole person with this unusual surname).
The remaining four stools from the set, lots 8-11, measure ‘3-feet by 1-foot-10’ (lot 8 sold for £6, lot 9 for £5, and lots 10 and 11 together for £11.16). Two of these were purchased by the connoisseur and Wardour Street 'curiosity dealer', John Swaby, whose own collection was sold from Torriano Place, Kentish Town, by Mr. Phillips in March 1860; while one other was purchased in the name of 'German’. One of the stools subsequently sold from the collection of Graham Baron Ash, Esq., Wingfield Castle, Norfolk, Christie's house sale, 30 May 1980, lot 182, and thereafter Christie’s London, 24 April 2008, lot 340, £162,500 (inc. premium). This latter stool is illustrated in Ed. S. Weber, William Kent, Designing Georgian Britain (New Haven and London, 2014, p. 457, fig. 17.16, and pp. 474-475), the book published in association with the current William Kent exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (22 March-13 July 2014), and is included in the exhibition.
The scroll legs carved with acanthus and fish scales linked by acanthus and oak festoons of the present banquette and stools corresponds closely to a set of Kent settees from Wanstead House, now at Wilton House, Salisbury, purchased by the 11th Earl of Pembroke and his second wife, the Duchess, Catherine Woronzow, from the 1822 sale (op. cit., p. 474, and p. 454, fig. 17.10).
Although there is no record of the cabinet-maker at Wanstead House, James Richards, the principal carver of the Office of Works and a frequent Kent collaborator, has been suggested as the craftsman of another set of early seat-furniture designed by Kent at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Another potential candidate for the Wanstead set is Thomas Roberts, the Royal chair-maker, who also supplied upholstery at Houghton.
A related pair of giltwood stools attributed to Kent and with confronting sphinxes, sold , The Property of a Nobleman, Christie's, London, 17 March 1977, lot 12..