CIRCA 1780

The elegant French-fashioned 'cabriolet' chairs are designed in the 1770's antique fashion evoking the triumph of lyric poetry with palm-wreathed and Roman-medallioned backs and sacred veil-draped tablets. This chair pattern, but with minor variations, was executed for the drawing room designed in the 1770's for Lulworth Castle, Dorset by the architect John Tasker (d. 1816). In particular they relate to seat furniture designed by the architect James Wyatt (d. 1813), who had a close working relationship with Tasker as well as with the London and Lancaster cabinet-makers Messrs. Gillows. One of Gillows' related 'Wyatt' like armchairs, with palm-wreathed columnar legs, was formerly in the collection of Dr. Lindsay Boynton, author of Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, 1995 (see S.E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London, Woodbridge, 2008, vol. I, pl. 148). Thomas Weld was invoiced by upholsterers Hunt, Tucker and Wadman on 10 January 1782 for recovering eight chairs with satin £1.9.4. (Dorset History Centre, D/WLC: AF88).