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Lot Essay
The chair is in the tradition of 18th century gothic seat furniture such as the armchairs supplied for Stonor Park, Buckinghamshire (illustrated in R. Edwards, Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1964, p. 149, p. 125) and the celebrated Strawberry Hill chairs, a set of gothic banqueting seats, designed by Horace Walpole (d. 1797) with the assistance of the artist, Richard Bentley (d. 1782), and executed by the St. Martin’s Lane cabinet-maker, William Hallett (d. 1781), for the Great Parlour or Refectory at Walpole’s ‘Gothick’ villa at Twickenham (illustrated in a watercolour by John Carter, 1788 [J. Mordaunt Crook, ‘Strawberry Hill Revisited – I, Country Life, 7 June 1973, p. 1599, fig. 3]). A pair of related ‘Strawberry Hill’ chairs sold, ‘The Earls of Macclesfield at Shirburn Castle’, Christie’s, London, 4 June 2009, lot 137, £32,450 (including premium). Another set of seven gothic armchairs from the collection of the Earls of Lonsdale sold from the family seat, Lowther Castle, Maple & Co., 15 April 1947, lot 639.
The chair offered here was almost certainly in the collection of the society hostess Daisy Fellowes, whose house Donnington Grove, Berkshire, was described by Nicolaus Pevsner as `a little Gothic gem'. The house was featured in Country Life, the corridor hall in particular was furnished with a variety of gothic seat furniture including the chair offered here (C. Hussey, ‘Donnington Grove, Berkshire’, Country Life, 25 September 1958, p. 656, fig. 6).
The chair offered here was almost certainly in the collection of the society hostess Daisy Fellowes, whose house Donnington Grove, Berkshire, was described by Nicolaus Pevsner as `a little Gothic gem'. The house was featured in Country Life, the corridor hall in particular was furnished with a variety of gothic seat furniture including the chair offered here (C. Hussey, ‘Donnington Grove, Berkshire’, Country Life, 25 September 1958, p. 656, fig. 6).