Lot Essay
These window benches are very closely related to a number of designs executed by Robert Adam and his documented furniture dating to the 1770's and early 1780's. A similar suite of furniture was supplied by Adam for Sir Abraham Hume at No.17, Hill Street, London. A pair of settees from the suite was sold in these Rooms, 28 March 1981, lot 214, and Adam's drawing dated 9 March 1780 is in Sir John Soane's Museum, London (see E. Harris, The Furniture of Robert Adam, 1963, pl.122-124). A closely related side table was supplied by Adam to the Archbishop of York in 1778 (drawing also in Sir John Soane's Museum) and appears in a trade advertisement in Apollo, December 1968, p.XXXIV. Another pair of pier-tables with husk-entwined and reeded legs executed by carver Joseph Perfetti of St. Marybone to Adam's design of 1771 was supplied for Slatram House, Devon (see E. Harris, op.cit., p. 69, pl. 21 and 22). Another side table of precisely the same design as these benches and with scagliola top was sold by Christie's London, 28 June 1984, lot 125, and a virtually identical pair of window seats is illustrated in an undated trade catalogue of the dealer Basil Dighton, New York.