Details
A SET OF TWELVE GEORGE II MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS in the Gothick manner, each with serpentine toprail carved with a Gothick arcade with trefoil bosses and with domed rosette terminals above a pierced tapering interlaced splat centred by a lozenge, the padded drop-in seats covered in pink silk floral damask above a waived Gothick arcade, on square panelled legs with ogee arch joined by a pierced quatrefoil and reed H-shaped stretcher, restorations, the top of one stile repaired, one stile partially replaced and spliced, restorations to the splats (12)
Provenance
The pattern of these richly carved 'parlour' chairs, with their serpentined backs and fretted-ribbon ornament combining the French picturesque and English gothic styles, almost certainly indicates that they were commissioned by Sir Roger Newdigate (d. 1806) for Arbury, Warwickshire. In the early 1760s, Sir Roger refurbished his Elizabeth mansion under the direction of the architect Henry Keene (d. 1776) who introduced Tudor ornament derived from Westminster Abbey, where he served as King George III's Surveyor. Their trefoiled and arcaded seat-rail, which is echoed on the pointed-arch crest-rail evolved from a parlour chair pattern invented by Horace Walpole and supplied by William Hallett (d. 1781) in the early 1750s (see: C. Wainwright, The Romantic Interior, London, 1989, p. 85. The chairs' rails, gothic-niched legs and fretted-quatrefoild stretchers, were also adopted for Sir Roger's Drawing Room chairs, which bear needlework dated 1764 (see: C. Musgrave, 'Arbury', Connoisseur, September 1966, p. 3). Thomas Chippendale illustrated related 'Gothic' patterned chairs 'fit for Eating Parlous' in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Directors, 1754-63; and Thomas Manwaring included a gothic pattern with the flowered crest-rail and trellis-lozenge frets found on this set, in his Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion, 1765, pl. 10.