A MATCHED SET OF SIXTEEN IRISH GEORGE III MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS

CIRCA 1760

Details
A MATCHED SET OF SIXTEEN IRISH GEORGE III MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS
circa 1760
Comprising two armchairs and fourteen side chairs, each shaped cresting above a pierced chinoiserie splat, the padded seats covered with close-nailed green leather or yellow damask on square molded legs headed by scrolled brackets with guttae-carved feet, six chairs with variations to construction and carving (16)
Provenance
For ten chairs:
Almost certainly the Hon. Lady Baillie, Pinkie House, Midlothian, Scotland, sold Sotheby's London, 11 May 1928
For six chairs:
Mrs. Soloman R. Guggenheim, sold Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 1-3 February 1951, lot 514
Literature
Old Furniture: A Magazine of Domestic Ornament, vol. IV, May-August 1928, p. 119 (one chair)

Lot Essay

A pair of chairs of this model that had been reduced in size were sold by Lady Olivia Waldron at Sotheby's New York, 12-13 April 1996, lot 399. This pair originally came from Headfort House, Co. Meath, Ireland. The combination of the Headfort provenance and the distinctive seat-rail construction of these chairs suggests that the whole group is Irish. A further pair of side chairs was sold from the stock of Philip Colleck, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 18 MAy 1956, lot 135.
The collection of Lady Baillie at Pinkie House, Musselburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, was an early example of a formed collection of English furniture and the sale in 1928 attracted the keenest collectors of the day. Among the chairs in the collection were two pairs acquired by another contemporary Scottish collector and which were sold by his descendants at Christie's London, 7 April 1988, lots 84-85.