POSSIBLY BY VILE AND COBB

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE II MAHOGANY LIBRARY OPEN ARMCHAIRS
Possibly by Vile and Cobb
Each with a serpentine-crested padded back, seat and armrests covered in close-nailed foliate blue damask, with outcurved channelled arm- supports, on channelled cabriole legs headed by scrolled ears, on scrolled feet, rerailed (2)

Provenance

Supplied to John Bligh, 3rd Earl of Darnley (d.1781) for Cobham Hall, Kent and by descent to
Ivo Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley, Cobham Hall, sold Sotheby's house sale, 22 July 1957, lot 438 (described as 'gilt over mahogany', presumably referring to a 19th Century gilding in line with contemporary fashion). Bought at that sale for The Department of the Environment by the Duke of Grafton.

Literature

C. Latham, In English Homes, London, 1904, p.xi (one chair shown in situ in the Gallery).
H. Avray Tipping, English Homes, Period III, Vol. II, Late Tudor & Early Stuart, 1927, fig. 1, p.ix (one chair shown in situ in the Gallery).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

These elegant drawing-room chairs have serpentined frames flowered with Roman foliage in the French 'picturesque' fashion popularised as 'Modern' in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Directors, 1754-62. Beaded acanthus-flowers issue from Ionic wave-scrolled cartouches formed by the reeds that wrap the legs, while their involuted feet are embossed with water-bubbles. Similar elements feature on a walnut throne, that was commissioned for the Palace of Westminster by the Duke of Ancaster, Lord Great Chamberlain to George III. Richly carved 'with a Scrole & leaf on the feet & Elbows', it was supplied for the 1761 coronation by Katherine Naish, daughter of Henry Williams (d.1759) the Court chair-maker to the 'Great Wardrobe' in George II's reign, and upholstered by Messrs William Vile and John Cobb, 'Upholsterers' to George III (H. Roberts, 'Royal Thrones, 1760-1840s, Furniture History, 1989, pp. 65 and 66, fig. 7).
These richly scrolled chairs formed part of a suite commissioned for Cobham Hall by John Bligh, 3rd Earl of Darnley (d.1781), and may have been executed by Messrs Vile and Cobb, whom the Earl patronised in the 1750s and 1760s. In particular he paid Vile £103 in 1759, at which time such chairs would have been highly fashionable (Messrs Coutts Bank archive).

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