Lot Essay
This suite of chairs bears the family crest of the Barons Walpole of Walpole and Wolterton, Norfolk - A Saracen's Head And Neck Couped At The Shoulders Ppr., Ducally Crowned Or, With A Long Cap Turned Forward Gu., Tasselled Or, Thereon A Catherine-Wheel Of The Same – surmounted by the family motto, ‘FARI QUAE SENTIAS’ (To speak what he thinks).
The chairs were retailed by London’s first department store, William Whiteley Ltd., established by the self-styled ‘Universal Provider’, William Whiteley, in Bayswater in 1875. By 1892, Whiteley’s, as the store became known, was described as, ‘the most remarkable shop in London’, and ‘under one roof and under one management has been brought, not only something of everything produced and manufactured under and upon the earth, but provision for every possible need of domestic life’ (Mrs. S.A. Brock Putnam, The Decorator and Furnisher, vol. 20, no. 6, September 1892, p. 222).
The chairs were retailed by London’s first department store, William Whiteley Ltd., established by the self-styled ‘Universal Provider’, William Whiteley, in Bayswater in 1875. By 1892, Whiteley’s, as the store became known, was described as, ‘the most remarkable shop in London’, and ‘under one roof and under one management has been brought, not only something of everything produced and manufactured under and upon the earth, but provision for every possible need of domestic life’ (Mrs. S.A. Brock Putnam, The Decorator and Furnisher, vol. 20, no. 6, September 1892, p. 222).