ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS CHIPPENDALE JUNIOR, CIRCA 1775

These window seats, with their elegantly scrolled arms, serpentine seats and arched panelled term legs terminating in spade feet, can be attributed to the St. Martin's Lane workshops of Thomas Chippendale, based on their idiosyncratic constructional features and similarities to two suites of furniture supplied by Chippendale and his son, Thomas Chippendale Junior, to Ninian Home (1732-95) for the dining room and drawing room at Paxton House, Berwickshire, circa 1774-6 and circa 1789, respectively. The leg pattern of these window seats in particular features on the cellaret, sideboard, three window seats and a set of four bergeres supplied for the dining room and still at Paxton (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, pp. 79, 99, 193 & 215, pls. 124, 162, 351 & 391). Whilst no bill for the dining room furniture survives, in a letter to Haig and Chippendale (Junior) dated 20 June 1789, Ninian Home wrote: 'I must observe with respect to the window curtains that your estimate is considerably higher than I paid for those in the dining-room...They were furnished in January 1776.' The fact that Home's plantations in the West Indies kept him away from Paxton for extended periods of time as well as his accounts and correspondence suggest that he furnished Paxton one room at a time - and strongly infer a date for the dining room furniture of 1775-6. A different design motif of these window seats - the flower inlaid to the scrolled end of the armrests (holly inlaid into mahogany) - was to feature on a suite supplied by Chippendale over a dozen years later at Paxton, specifically on the sofa, armchairs and side tables in the drawing room (J. Goodison, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior, London, 2017, figs. 106, 191 and 223).