CIRCA 1770

This elegant giltwood window seat evokes the ‘French’ taste popular in England in the 1770s. It was part of a large suite that included a confidante, eight armchairs and six window seats. The confidante, four window seats and two armchairs are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (57.9.3-4; 57.91-2; 58.78). Two armchairs and a single window seat were sold from the collection of Henry Ford II at Christies, New York, 17 October 1981, lots 170 and 171.
From 1769-1772, Morant was actively furnishing his London townhouse. His diaries note Thomas Chippendale (1769), George Seddon to whom he supplied mahogany from his family’s Jamaican estates, (George?) Long, upholsterer in Fenchurch Street (1771), and John Taitt (1772). An invoice from 10 July 1773 for the princely sum of £316 to Alexander Murray to deliver a pair of pier mirrors indicates Morant spared no expense. They were likely placed above a pair of remarkable demilune tables supported by carytids whose maker remains unknown (G. Jackson Stops, Treasure Houses of Britain, New Haven, 1985, fig. 268).
The most likely candidate in this known group for the suite that included this window seat is John Taitt who was in partnership with William Gordon. They had premises in King Street and later in Little Argyle Street and were active from around 1768-1799. Their documented clients included the first Duke of Northumberland (1768), the first Earl Spencer at Althorp (1770-79), Sir John Griffin Griffin at Audley End (1771-2) and Georgiana, Lady Spencer at St. Albans (1783-4).
This suite, along with the pair of pier tables and mirrors were removed to Brockenhurst Park, Hampshire where they remained until the suite was sold at Sotheby’s in 1956 where the sale catalogue mentions five benches though six are known to exist. The mirrors and pier tables were included in the 1959 sale of the contents of Brockenhurst Park and were purchased by Lord and Lady Illife for Basildon Park, Berkshire.