.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The difference in types of mahogany between the arms and the backs, the use of oak for the seat-rails, and the lack of cross-struts, would all point to a provincial manufacture, possibly being made to extend an existing London-made set of chairs.
The pattern for the chair backs was introduced in the 1750s as a 'new- pattern' for parlour chairs by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale (d. 1779) and featured in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754 (pl. XII). The splat features on a set of chairs at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire, and on a set of chairs in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, one of which bears the inscription on the splat-shoe '6 pedestals for Mr. Chippendale's backs' (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, figs. 129-132).
The pattern for the chair backs was introduced in the 1750s as a 'new- pattern' for parlour chairs by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale (d. 1779) and featured in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754 (pl. XII). The splat features on a set of chairs at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire, and on a set of chairs in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, one of which bears the inscription on the splat-shoe '6 pedestals for Mr. Chippendale's backs' (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, figs. 129-132).