A FRAMED ARMORIAL PANEL PAINTING

The Property of a Descendant of JOHN LLOYD WYNNE of Coed Coch (Lots 211 to 234) In the early years of the nineteenth century, John Lloyd Wynne (d. 1862) employed Gillows of London and Lancaster to furnish Coed Coch, his Doric-porticoed villa in Denbighshire built by the architect Henry Hakewill (d. 1830). While he appears to have inherited some Gillow furniture from his parents (see lots 225 and 232) it was George Gillow (d. 1822) of Oxford Street that he consulted for the design of the furniture, whose elegant antique or Grecian style derived in part from Gillows' close association with the Wyatt family of architects. Between 1806 and 1807 the firm provided some £2,000 worth of furnishings and furniture, and Wynne's expenditure book records the arrival of the first consignment in March 1807: 'Pd Capt. Jms Lenying freight 48 packages furniture from Lancaster to Conway ferry ... £25', and includes payments for a messenger and the eleven teams of horses that were needed to deliver the furniture to Coed Coch. Fourteen days later, Wynne records 'Pd Messrs Gillow 176 Oxford Street...£1,000' and further payments totalling some £800 were made up to May the following year. Four furniture sketches for furniture supplied to John Wynne for Coed Coch survive in Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books, two of which are for items included in this sale (lots 229 and 234). One is for the 'Grecian sofa', whose pattern dated December 1806, is accompanied by its manufacturing costs. It later appeared in a portrait of Elizabeth Wynne painted in 1811 by Joseph Allen (d. 1839), and accompanying a portrait of her bibliophile husband holding a book. Elizabeth's fireside desk would have been provided by the mahogany sofa table (lot 226), while her husband's secretaire, whose pattern also features in Gillows' archives, formed the centrepiece of the trellis-grilled bookcase, which is embellished with reed-enriched columns in a French/Pompeian manner (lot 234). Likewise, the Wynne's squab-cushioned parlour chairs with klismos-tablets were conceived in the French/Grecian manner. Their pattern relates to one that featured in Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary of 1803, to which Gillows subscribed and may also have contributed. The chairs globe-spindled backs would have harmonised with the terrestrial and celestial globes that would have accompanied the bookcase and which bear the maker's label of W. and T.M. Bardin (lot 228). Additional parlour chairs and a second sofa, with minor variations in the carving, appear to have formed part of a later consignment. This richly-figured mahogany furniture was manufactured at Gillows' Lancaster branch, whose extensive ware-rooms were then recognised as being 'The best stocked of any in this line, outside of the metropolis'. Wynne's expenditure book also costs the furniture's transport, including shipment from Lancaster to Liverpool, and then onwards to Ruddlan before finally arriving at Coed Coch.

Details

A FRAMED ARMORIAL PANEL PAINTING
18in. x 13¾in. (46cm. x 35cm.)

Provenance

John Lloyd Wynne (d. 1862) of Coed Coch, Denbighshire
Thence by descent

Lot Essay

The arms are those of Goodman of Ruthin as granted to Gawen Goodman on 20 November 1573 quartering arms borne by the descendants of Cunedda Wledig (fl. circa 450 A.D.), Edwin ap Gronwy, King of Tegeingl, Brutus ap Julius ab Ascanius, Marchudd ap Cynan and Llywarch Howlbwrch.

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