Lot Essay
These George II banqueting-hall chairs were almost certainly commissioned for the newly built mansion at Godmersham Park, Kent, and were ordered from Canton through the East India Company by Thomas May (d. 1781). It is possible that the William May, who is recorded travelling, as a supercargo on the eastindiaman Onslow in 1746, was a relative who executed the commission. The Mays' armorial crest 'Out of a ducal coronet or a leopard's head gules bezante' is displayed within the serpentined ebony-japanned cartouches. Thomas May probably ordered a china dinner service at this time and a cup bearing his crest is illustrated in D. S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, London, 1975, p. 370.