Lot 58
58
A GEORGE II MAHOGANY OPEN ARMCHAIR with arched tapering back centred by a shell cresting and with pierced interlaced knot-pattern splat headed by rosettes, the out-scrolled arms on foliate shepherd's crook supports, the bowed padded seat upholstered in associated gros point needlework in wool and silk with a vase of flowering foliage on a red ground, on cabriole legs carved with acanthus and shells and beading, the back with small repairs and small veneer replacement, the left arm repaired, the feet with repairs

Details
A GEORGE II MAHOGANY OPEN ARMCHAIR with arched tapering back centred by a shell cresting and with pierced interlaced knot-pattern splat headed by rosettes, the out-scrolled arms on foliate shepherd's crook supports, the bowed padded seat upholstered in associated gros point needlework in wool and silk with a vase of flowering foliage on a red ground, on cabriole legs carved with acanthus and shells and beading, the back with small repairs and small veneer replacement, the left arm repaired, the feet with repairs
The seat 23½in. (59.5cm.) wide; the back 37½in. (95cm.) high
Provenance
Bought from R.A. Lee, 23 October 1958, for #380

Lot Essay

Its elegant French serpentine frame evolved from the Huguenot ornamentalist William De la Cour's First Book of Ornament, 1741. It included patterns for related chairs with folded-ribbon splats, scallop-centred crests with flowered involvuted scrolls and carvings which included the nature-goddess scallop shell combined with roman foliage. The designs of De la Cour (d.1767) who became Master of the Edinburgh Trustee's Academy in 1760, played an influential role on St Martin's Lane style of the mid-eighteenth century (see: E. White, Pictorial Dictionary of Furniture Design, p.59

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