POSSIBLY BY THE ST. MARTIN'S LANE SYNDICATE, CIRCA 1750, RESTORATIONS AND REPLACEMENTS TO LEGS

With its boldly scrolled toes, foliate-carved knees and petal-carved handholds, this chair is closely related to the suite supplied to John, 2nd Earl Poulett (d.1764) for Hinton House, Somerset. While the Poulett papers are tantalizingly incomplete, several leading London cabinet-makers, probably working under the supervision of the architect Matthew Brettingham, can be associated with the commission on the basis of documented designs or similarities to known works, and these include Matthias Lock, Giles Grendey and Thomas Chippendale. Current research has associated the Hinton House suite with Messrs. William Vile (d.1767) and John Cobb (d.1778), later Royal cabinet-makers to George III, who formed a powerful syndicate with William Hallett (d.1781) in St. Martin's Lane from 1753. Vile and Cobb supplied a set of closely related side chairs to Anthony Chute for the Vyne, Hampshire in that same year, one of which is illustrated in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 27. In addition, both Vile and Hallett were born in Somerset, within five miles of Hinton St. George, and maintained contact with their relatives there. As such, they would have been privy to the 2nd Earl's refurbishments, particularly as their neighbor Matthias Lock was supplying furniture for the house.

A virtually identical library chair, but with pad back feet, covered in 18th Century needlework was sold by the Netto Family in these Rooms, 13 April 2000, lot 77 ($165,500), whilst a further chair of apparently identical model and probably from the same suite is illustrated in F. Lewis hinckley, A Directory of Queen Anne Early Georgian and Chippendale Furniture, New York, 1971, pl.37.