Lot Essay
This set of chairs came from Compton Place, Sussex. The Tudor Bourne Place, later renamed Compton Place, was remodelled by Colen Campbell between 1726 and 1729 for Sir Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington. In the 1780s it passed into the Cavendish family when further alterations were made to the house. It remains a seat of the Duke of Devonshire (see C. Hussey, English Country Houses, Early Georgian 1715-1760, London, 1955, pp. 87-96).
The chair, with straight pilaster legs, arched cresting, and outward-scrolled uprights, relates to a 'Parlour Chair' pattern in Robert Manwaring's The Cabinet and Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion, l765 (pl. 6); while the cabled flutes of its splat are partly 'stopped' in the manner of an Ionic column.
There is a further chair from the same set in the Dining-Room at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire (see M. Girouard, Hardwick Hall, National Trust Guidebook, 1989, p. 76). The chair is likely to have been brought to Hardwick by Evelyn, Duchess of Devonshire (d. 1960).
The chair, with straight pilaster legs, arched cresting, and outward-scrolled uprights, relates to a 'Parlour Chair' pattern in Robert Manwaring's The Cabinet and Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion, l765 (pl. 6); while the cabled flutes of its splat are partly 'stopped' in the manner of an Ionic column.
There is a further chair from the same set in the Dining-Room at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire (see M. Girouard, Hardwick Hall, National Trust Guidebook, 1989, p. 76). The chair is likely to have been brought to Hardwick by Evelyn, Duchess of Devonshire (d. 1960).