LATE 18TH/19TH CENTURY, THE ARMCHAIRS AND TWO SIDE CHAIRS COMMISSIONED IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The distinctive splat design employed to these parlour dining-chairs, which were probably originally supplied to the Ker family for the earlier Portavo, Co. Down, is derived from Thomas Chippendale’s design for a 'new pattern chair' published in his Gentleman and the Cabinet Maker’s Director, 1st edition, 1754, plate XII. English pattern books were certainly used by Irish cabinet-makers, but the designs were generally adapted to include Irish idiosyncrasies - in this case the shape of the elongated shells to the upper corners of the toprail and the horizontal shaped brackets to the top of the legs, which are not commonly seen in English examples (The Knight of Glin and J. Peill, Irish Furniture: Woodwork and Carving in Ireland from the Earliest Times to the Act of Union, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 110). These 'improved' English designs and patterns were continually referred to and repeated in Ireland throughout the 18th and into the 19th centuries.

A related set of dining-chairs, which were almost certainly supplied to Richard Talbot, (d. 1834) of Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin during the extensive remodelling of the castle in 1760, were sold Christie’s house sale, Malahide Castle, 10-12 May 1976, lot 123 and then subsequently from the collection of the Hon. Desmond Guinness, Leixlip Castle, Co. Kildare, sold Sotheby’s, London, 7 July 2000, lot 27 (£157,500 incl. premium). A further related set of sixteen chairs with moulded legs were formerly in the collection of the 3rd Earl of Iveagh at Elveden Hall, Norfolk, sold Christie’s house sale, 21-24 May 1984, lot 436.