CIRCA 1720

EAST-WEST: THE HEATHCOTE ARMORIAL LACQUER HALL CHAIRS
These elegant and unusual hall chairs offer a window into the British fascination with Chinese art and reflect the unique trade relationship between these distant nations, a relationship which had a profound stylistic influence on the decorative arts in Britain. The finely lacquered back and seat boards, with their re-entrant corners and enchanting mountainous landscapes, were commissioned from China before making the long journey to an English workshop where the japanned frames were executed and the armorial shields likely added to the vacant mantling.

Emblazoned with the coat-of-arms of William Heathcote (1693-1751), the armorial chairs were almost certainly commissioned to celebrate his marriage in 1720 to Lady Elizabeth Parker, daughter of Thomas Parker, the 1^st Earl of Macclesfield. Heathcote’s father Samuel Heathcote was a merchant and director of the East India Company; and while William Heathcote followed in his father’s mercantile footsteps, his brother Sir Gilbert Heathcote was the Governor of the Bank of England. William Heathcote retired in 1715 when he inherited a fortune of £90,000 from his father and entered politics, serving as MP for Buckingham from 1722-27 and as MP for Southampton until 1741. He was created a baronet in 1733 and as the arms on these chairs are for Heathcote impaling Parker and do not include a baronet’s coronet, the chairs can be dated with some precision to between 1720 and 1733, the period between Heathcote’s marriage and his elevation to the baronetcy. The chairs were intended to furnish Hursley Park, Hampshire, which Heathcote had acquired in 1718 from the daughters of Richard Cromwell and which he set about remodelling with the assistance of the architect Sir Thomas Hewett, a role Hewett had similarly undertaken for Heathcote’s father-in-law at Shirburn Castle.

LACQUERED FURNITURE AND THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
This distinctive model of hall chair is typically associated with the China Trade of the East India Company. The back and seat were executed in China, probably in Guangzhou, often for patrons connected with the Company such as Heathcote, and then mounted on japanned frames in London. A closely related set of four hall chairs with lacquered backs above japanned seats and legs are decorated with the coat-of-arms of Sir Gregory Page Bt. (1668-1720), for Wricklemarsh, Kent, who, like Samuel Heathcote, was a director and later chairman of the East India Company. These chairs can be dated to circa 1714-20, and according to Adam Bowett are among the earliest known datable chairs with this remarkable ‘broken’ leg and ‘flying’ bracket design¹ (a pair of chairs was first sold Christie's Wricklemarsh house sale, 23-29 April 1783; and again Christie's, London, 15 November 1990, lot 69). Page must have favoured the model, as a suite of furniture with similar frames but in walnut and padouk comprising four chairs, two stools and a sofa was also supplied to him for Wricklemarsh at the same time and was later in the collection of William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), 1st Viscount Leverhulme (sold from The Art Collections of the Late Viscount Leverhulme, Anderson Galleries, New York, 9 February 1926, lot 137). The sofa from the suite was later in the collection of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, sold Christie’s, Derby House, London, 12-14 March 1947, lot 349 and subsequently sold at Christie's, London, 22 January 2009, lot 100 (£99,650 including premium). The Page family’s links to China through the East India Company are further underlined in the set of eight Chinese Export ‘sgabello’ hall chairs, dated to circa 1725-35, constructed in rosewood inlaid with the coat-of-arms of Sir Gregory Page, 2^nd Bt. (1695-1775) and Kenward (for his wife Martha Kenward, whom he married in 1721) in mother-of-pearl and with mahogany seats, which are now in the Sir John Soane Museum – though clearly made to European prototypes, these chairs have distinct characteristics of Chinese joinery².

A further set of six chairs, closely related to the Page model, were made for John Crowley (1659–1728), son of Sir Ambrose Crowley (c.1657/58-1713) director of the South Sea Company and founder of Crowley Iron Works in County Durham. John Crowley inherited the extensive ironmongery business on his father’s death in 1713, and two years later, he married the formidable Theodosia Gascoigne (1693-1782), the only surviving daughter of Rev. Joseph Gascoigne. The coat-of-arms on these chairs are that of Crowley impaling Gascoigne, and it is probable the set of chairs was supplied between 1715 and Crowley’s death in 1728. Theodosia inherited Barking Hall in Suffolk in 1726, the seat of their mother's family the Theobalds, which passed into the estates of the Earls of Ashburnham through the marriage of her daughter Elizabeth to John Ashburnham, 2nd Earl of Ashburnham, together with a dowry of £200,000. Remarkably, in addition to the present pair from the Heathcote family, Henry McLaren, 2nd Bt. Aberconway possessed a set of six chairs from the Crowley suite at Barking Hall (see below).
A further closely-related pair of japanned armorial hall chairs feature not only the ‘flying’ brackets to the top of the legs but also the shell-centred front seat rail similar to those on the Heathcote chairs. While the coat-of-arms is no longer discernible on this pair of chairs, they were probably made for a member of the East India Company, and the red shield that remains to the centre of the armorial cartouche indicates that the man for whom they were made was married to an heiress (sold Christie’s, London, 27 November 2003, lot 51).

A set of sixteen chairs with the same shaped lacquered backs decorated with coats-of-arms but lacking landscapes was almost certainly supplied to Robert Child between 1715, when he was knighted, and his death in 1721³. Like several other members of his immediate family, Child was closely connected to the Company and had been elected Chairman in the same year as his knighthood. The chairs remain at Osterley today, where they were first recorded in the 1782 inventory, along with other armorial lacquer wares including a domed coffer that was sold at Christie’s, London, 3 July 1997, lot 16 (£32,200), the pair to which is probably now in the Gallery at Osterley⁴.

Comparable lacquered armorial hall chairs can be found currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington⁵. These chairs bear the coat of arms of Sir Herbert Packington, 7th Baronet, and his wife Elizabeth Hawkins. This pair of chairs was given to the museum by Brigadier W.E. Clark DSO, through The Art Fund in 1962.

A set of chairs of nearly identical form made entirely in pine and lacking their lacquer decoration highlights the fact that, as well as furniture being partly made in China and sent to England for finishing (as with the japanned seats and legs of the Heathcote and Page chairs), there is a history of undecorated furniture, including bureau bookcases, that was constructed in England and sent to China for lacquering (this set of chairs was formerly in the Collection of Dodi Rosekrans, sold Sotheby’s, New York, 8-9 December 2011, lot 31). It was relatively inexpensive to send undecorated furniture to China for decoration, with pieces serving as ballast in what would be ‘empty’ cargo ships leaving from England in order to take back pieces made in China for the export market⁶.

THE DESIGN AND POSSIBLE MAKERS
The distinctive ‘flying’ brackets of the present chairs places them in a specific group of furniture made in circa 1715-1720. The source of the ‘flying’ brackets is something of a stylistic mystery, with echoes in both Chinese 17th-century furniture and the designs of Daniel Marot. In terms of function, perhaps the bracket compensated for the need to have stretchers by providing greater stability to the legs and frames. Whatever the origins, the result is an entirely unique English form. Most notable of this group which features the same distinctive ‘flying’ S-scrolled brackets, many of which are attributed to the Royal cabinet-maker James Moore (c. 1670-1726), is the celebrated Browsholme suite of furniture, originally silvered and now gilded, including at least six side chairs, two stools and a table. The suite was almost certainly supplied by James Moore to Edward Parker (d. 1728) for Browsholme Hall, Lancashire, who was a distant cousin of Sir William Heathcote’s father-in-law, Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield (sold The Exceptional Sale, Christie’s, London, 7 July 2011, lot 23, £181,500 including premium).

James Moore the Elder (1670-1726) had premises 'over against the Golden Bottle in Shorts Gardens’, St. Giles-in-the-Fields and became cabinetmaker to George I and the Prince and Princess of Wales, later George II, the commissions for whom he was in partnership with John Gumley from 1714. Moore was influenced by contemporary designs from France disseminated through works such as Daniel Marot's Nouveau Livre d'Orfeverie, 1703, which included designs for silver furniture, and by the work of Jean, René and Thomas Pelletier⁷. In his own capacity Moore served leading members of the British aristocracy including the Duke of Chandos and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, who appointed him Comptroller of Works at Blenheim in 1716 as successor to Sir John Vanbrugh, and became known as the duchess’s ‘Oracle’⁸. Moore was likely the author of a pair of gilt-gesso tables made for Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough at Blenheim, which combine a scrolled bracket with a broken cabriole leg – an early iteration of the ‘flying bracket’.

Moore was renowned for giltwood (and gilt-gesso) furniture – but in some rare instances he signed with an incised MOORE signature – evidently he was also skilled in japanning and the 1740 inventory of Blenheim stated ‘Long Cabinet, a black lacquered table of Mr Moores’, and in the Little Round Room before the Three Cornered Room ‘a folding black lacquer table of Mr Moore's’⁹. A set of four lacquered and gilt-gesso hall chairs, almost certainly supplied by James Moore to Sir Robert Walpole for Houghton Hall, Norfolk, provides a link between the Heathcote chairs and Moore; their backs are similarly decorated in Chinese Export lacquer depicting mountainous landscapes, while the legs and aprons are of delicate gilt-gesso that can be related to the Browsholme suite (one pair: sold by the 6^th Marquess of Cholmondeley, Christie’s, London, 29 March 1984, lot 103; the other pair sold by the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, Christie’s, London, 8 December 1994, lot 110, £106,000 including premium)¹⁰. The Heathcote chairs (and by extension the Page and Crowley chairs) could possibly have been made by Moore in conjunction with his partner Gumley – and indeed Elizabeth Gumley is recorded as having supplied to William Heathcote for Hursley a ‘hang’g Glass’ on the 8 March 1721/2 at a cost of £9 and for ‘Glass’s… as p bill’ on the 10 December 1725 for the huge sum of £140¹¹. Elizabeth Gumley traded with her son John Gumley until his death in 1727 and continued the business afterwards in partnership with William Turing. Several other relatively unknown makers are recorded as working at Hursley – James Hawford & Company, who traded from the ‘Blue Boar’ on Cornhill and John Howard, both of whom may have also supplied pieces to Sir Gilbert Heathcote, as well as Samuel Laverick, Cassandra Keighly, Thomas Thompson and Thomas Waghorne – although none of these, it would seem, are likely to be contenders for the authorship of these chairs.

Other examples of furniture featuring the distinctive ‘flying’ bracket include a pair of Queen Anne walnut stools which were in the 20th century collection of Sir (Richard) John Sherlock Gooch, 12th Baronet (1930-1999) of Benacre Hall, Suffolk and latterly in the celebrated collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller (sold Christie’s, New York, 9 May 2018, lot 244, $275,000 including premium). Two virtually identical stools to the Rockefeller pair, possibly from the same suite, include one which was in the collection of Colonel H.H. Aykroyd at Whixley Hall, Yorkshire circa 1950 and another sold at Christie’s, London, 7 July 1988, lot 53. A closely related walnut settee, probably en suite, was with Hotspur in 1962¹².

An alternative candidate for the authorship of the present chairs Richard Roberts (d.1733) son of court chair-maker Thomas Roberts (d.1714), who traded at 'The Royal Chair' in Marylebone Street, Westminster. Richard succeeded his father as carver and joiner to the Royal Household and supplied a suite of twenty-three chairs and two sofas with related legs to Sir Robert Walpole, later 1st Earl of Orford (d. 1745) for Houghton Hall, Norfolk, eight chairs for the 'Cov'd or Wrought Bedchamber' and the remainder in the 'Cabinett' and can be found today in The Metropolitan Museum of Art¹³. The Roberts’ repertoire features examples of stylized hoof feet as seen on the Heathcote chairs, as well as a similar shape of leg. A set of side chairs attributed to the Roberts family of markedly similar outline, with upright padded backs, exaggerated marquetry inlaid ‘broken’ cabriole legs and square hoof feet were sold Christie’s, London, 10 February 2022, lots 56 and 57. For a related suite of green-japanned seat furniture, comprising six chairs and two stools with padded backs and compass seats on broken cabriole legs, see those preserved in the collections Erddig, Wrexham¹⁴.

20^th CENTURY HISTORY OF THE HEATHCOTE CHAIRS
The re-emergence of the present pair provides an exciting addition to the suite of eight Heathcote armorial hall chairs that were sold by The Venerable The Archdeacon Sir Francis C.C. Heathcote, 9th Bt. (1868-1961), as part of the Heathcote Heirlooms in these rooms, 26 May 1938, lot 118. This original group of eight chairs have since been sold in various iterations, but it is important to note that the present pair did not form part of this set and are first recorded with any confidence in Oliver Brackett, English Furniture Illustrated, rev. ed., London, 1950, p. 132, pl. CIV.

The eight recorded chairs from the original suite have appeared in several notable sales over the years. The first dispersal was the aforementioned Christie's sale in 1938 where they made £246.14S and were acquired by Alexander Keiller (1889-1955) for Avebury Manor, Wiltshire until sold Sotheby's, London, 21 January 1955, lot 178. Subsequently, the same set of eight was sold Christie's, London, 19 June 1980, lot 24, for £22,000. A pair from this set were sold the following year Christie’s, New York, 17 October 1981, lot 199 and achieved a price of $24,000. Another pair (presumably from the remaining six sold in 1980), was sold Sotheby’s, London, 29 November 2002, lot 152 for £96,850. Most recently, a pair belonging to Ann and Gordon Getty, and acquired from the 1981 sale, was sold at Christie's on 22 October 2022, lot 319 for $176,400.

The 20^th century history of the present pair is a little less clear. As noted above, the chairs formed part of the collection of Henry McLaren, 2nd Bt. Aberconway for Aberconway House, No. 38 South Street, London, who also owned examples of the Crowley lacquer hall chairs. One of the grandest neo-Georgian houses to be built during the inter-war period, work started in 1918 and was completed by 1922. The main rooms accommodated Lord Aberconway’s art collection which was set among the striking black and white interiors. Lord Aberconway evidently had a predilection for this model, and it is easy to see how the Art Deco lines and glossy sheen of the lacquer would have been at home among the sleek marble fitted rooms.

An inventory of the contents of Aberconway House dated 27^th July 1934 records a set of six chairs on the 1^st Floor Landing which described as ‘William and Mary. Originally the property of the Earl of Ashburnham, of Barking Hall, Suffolk. Decorated with Coat-of-Arms’, a pair of which were exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, in Autumn 1919 and Winter 1938/39.

A further set of fours chairs appear in the 1934 inventory described as ‘William and Mary’ and recorded as those sold Christie’s, London, 21 December 1920, lot 57. These were acquired by ‘F. Partridge’ – possibly referring to renowned dealer and founder of the eponymous firm Frank Partridge who may have acted as agent for Lord Aberconway – and are described in the catalogue entry as ‘Four old English chairs, entirely lacquered black, and the backs decorated with foliage and a shield in red and gold’. It is perhaps more likely this description relates to another set of chairs at Aberconway House, possibly those illustrated in the Hall in the early 1920s (see above), and which are closer to the Page and Crowley models discussed previously.
The remnants of a torn paper label to the leg of one chair of the present pair suggests they were at one stage loaned to the Department of Woodwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, although the nature of this loan remains a mystery. There is of course a chance the present pair were on loan at the time of the 1934 inventory – executed when Henry McLaren succeeded his father to the Barony - and therefore were not captured in the valuation of contents at Aberconway House. Regardless, that we are unclear as to how the present chairs left the original Heathcote suite and entered into the Aberconway collections does little to diminish their import, as the Heathcote lacquer chairs are undoubtedly the grandest and most accomplished iteration of this uniquely Chinese influenced form, and represent an exciting re-discovery extending further the known set of Heathcote banqueting hall chairs to at least ten.

[1] A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Woodbridge, 2009, pp. 154-5 and fig. 4:16.
[2] The Sir John Soane Museum, Museum number: XF296, accessed June 2024, https://collections.soane.org/object-xf296
[3] National Trust Collections, ‘Osterley Park's “Japanned Chairs with the Family Arms” - circa 1715-20,’ object 771891.1.1, accessed June 2024, https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/771891.1.1.
[4] See also National Trust Collections, “Osterley Park's Chinese Export lacquer armorial table - circa 1715-20”, NT 773362, accessed June 2024, https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/773362
[5] Victoria and Albert Museum, "Hall Chair," accessed June, 2024, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O55154/hall-chair-unknown/.
[6] A. Bowett, op. cit., pp. 154-155; and A. Bowett, English Furniture from Charles II to Queen Anne, 1660-1714, Woodbridge, 2002, pp. 147-9.
[7] T. Murdoch, 'Jean, René and Thomas Pelletier, a Huguenot family of carvers and gilders in England 1682-1726 - Part I', The Burlington Magazine, November 1997, p. 738, fig. 11.
[8] C. Gilbert [ed.], Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 618-9.
[9] BIFMO website: https://bifmo.furniturehistorysociety.org/entry/moore-james-snr-1670-1726 (accessed June 2024).
[10] See E. Lennox-Boyd, [ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, pp. 105-7 and 206, no. 30 for pair sold by the 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley, Christie’s, London, 29 March 1984, lot 103.
[11] Hampshire County Record Office, Heathcote Papers, Household and General Expenses 1718-26, 63/M84/292).
[12] F. Davis, A Picture History, Furniture, London, 1962, fig. 127.
[13] The Metroplotian Museum, Accession Number: 60.134.2, accessed June 2024, Attributed to Richard Roberts Side chair (one of a pair) British The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)
[14] National Trust Collection, “A chair - one of Erddig's 'gold stuff Chairs [and stools] wth green Japan frams' - circa 1720-26”, NT 1147122.2, accessed June 2024, https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1147122.2