CIRCA 1740

The distinctive hipped profile of the scrolled legs, husk-festooned acanthus carving and bifurcated boldly scrolled toes are features that appear on furniture bearing the label cabinetmaker Giles Grendey (d.1780) of Clerkenwell, London. A suite sharing these characteristics was supplied for Gunton Park, Norfolk in 1740-45 (a side chair from the suite is illustrated in C.Gilbert, ed., Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p.243, fig.437). A set of six chairs of this design attributed to the Grendey workshop was sold in these Rooms, 16 October 1998, lot 32. A similar suite of lighter proportion comprising at least twelve side chairs with similar parcel-gilt foliate-carved legs and scrolling toes issuing long acanthus also bears comparison: six chairs from the suite, formerly the property of Grover S. Cleveland, were sold by Sotheby's New York, 29 October 1983, lot 71; a further set of six was sold from Littlecote, Wiltshire, Sotheby's house sale, 20-22 November 1985, lot 341. Further comparison can be made to mahogany seat furniture of a slightly later date (1757) supplied by the cabinetmaker and royal tapestry maker Paul Saunders (d.1771) to the Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall in Norfolk (see A.Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, figs.378 and 379).