A SET OF TWELVE GEORGE III POLYCHROME-DECORATED DINING-CHAIRS

THE PROPERTY OF THE LATE RAFE CAVENAGH-MAINWARING, ESQ. SOLD BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTORS (Lots 71-75)

Details

A SET OF TWELVE GEORGE III POLYCHROME-DECORATED DINING-CHAIRS
Including two open armchairs, each with green and white decoration on a cream ground and with oval pierced back centred by a medallion, six with a Roman soldier and six with a Roman maiden, and framed by a concave- sided pierced octagon decorated with floral and foliate trails, the bowed canted seat with squab cushion covered in cream-coloured velvet, the seatrail with feather filled lappets and on rounded shallow cabriole legs, six with restorations to backs, later angle-brackets, decorated on a light-blue ground (12)

Provenance

Acquired from Phillips of Hitchin on the 2 July 1948 and invoiced as 'A very rare set of 10 single and 2 armchairs of Hepplewhite chairs with oval backs and carved seats. The original painted decorations which were missing have been entirely restored £265 - -'.

Literature

G. Nares, 'Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire', Country Life, 6 June 1957, p. 1147, fig. 12.

Lot Essay

A closely related 'Catherine wheel' medallion chair-back pattern features in one of the late 1780s Estimate Sketch Books of Gillows of London and Lancaster preserved in the Westminster City Archives, no. 67/72 (illustrated in L. Boynton (ed.) Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 269). Messrs. A. Hepplewhite & Co. illustrated an oval-backed chair in their The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788, (pl. 6), and advised that it should be upholstered with linen or cotton cases according to the general hue of their japanned frames. A set of four similar chairs was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 14 February 1992, lot 123, and a set of six closely related armchairs was sold anonymously in these Rooms, 14 July 1994, lot 372.

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