A pair of Scottish mahogany pierced 'cockpen' open armchairs
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A pair of Scottish mahogany pierced 'cockpen' open armchairs

LATE 18TH CENTURY

Details
A pair of Scottish mahogany pierced 'cockpen' open armchairs
Late 18th Century
Each with latticework backs and green silk damask upholstered seats, flanked by outscrolled armrests, on cluster-column legs joined by turned stretchers, all legs spliced (2)
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

The chair's reed-cluster legs relate to those of 'bamboo' chairs illustrated in W. Chambers' Design of Chinese Buildings, 1757; while their Chinese-railed backs have lozenged compartments thought to correspond to some 'Diamond back' chairs supplied in 1761 to William, 5th Earl of Dumfries by the Edinburgh wright Alexander Peter (S. Pryke, 'Cockpen Quest', Country Life, 29 April 1993, pp.80-81).
In the early 20th Century, the furniture historian Percy Macquoid wrote of a chair of this pattern, then in the collection of Major William Baird at Lennoxlove, Scotland, as being after a 'local design of a chair known as the 'cockpen' chair' (P. Macquoid, Country Life, 11 April 1914, pp.552-528). The invention of this popular pattern, associated with Cockpen, Modlothian and the Earls of Dalhousie has also been attributed to Messr. Young, Hamilton and Trotter of Edinburgh (F. Bramford, Dictionary of Edinburgh Furniture Makers, 1660-1840, 1983, pl.46).

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