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Lot Essay
These parlour chairs, upholstered in the French manner, are conceived in the antique gothic fashion such as featured on some bobbin-turned library chairs, which were supplied around 1806 for George, Prince of Wales's Carlton House mansion by the Mount Street firm of Messrs. Elward Marsh and Thomas Tatham (H. Roberts, For the Kings Pleasure: The Furnishing and Decoration of George IV's Apartments at Windsor Castle, London, 2001, fig. 329).
The present chairs, with their ebony-black frames enriched with ivory libation-paterae, would have been romantically associated with 17th century Indian-crafted chairs, that were then prized as 'Elizabethan' gothic.
Their form also relates to that of banqueting chairs designed around 1816 for Battle Abbey, Sussex by George Bullock (d. 1818) and illustrated in R. Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 1817 (see also P. Agius, Regency Furniture and Interiors, 1984, pl. 95). Similar 'gothic' bobbined parlour chairs were supplied for Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire around 1820; while some contemporary Grecian-scrolled and patera-enriched chairs were supplied for Althorp, Northamptonshire (see G. Worsley, 'Eastnor Castle - I', Country Life, 13 May 1993, p. 83; and a pair of chairs, almost certainly supplied to John, 2nd Earl Spencer (d. 1834), sold anonymously [Property of a Lady of Title] in these Rooms, 7 July 1994, lot 118).
The present chairs, with their ebony-black frames enriched with ivory libation-paterae, would have been romantically associated with 17th century Indian-crafted chairs, that were then prized as 'Elizabethan' gothic.
Their form also relates to that of banqueting chairs designed around 1816 for Battle Abbey, Sussex by George Bullock (d. 1818) and illustrated in R. Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 1817 (see also P. Agius, Regency Furniture and Interiors, 1984, pl. 95). Similar 'gothic' bobbined parlour chairs were supplied for Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire around 1820; while some contemporary Grecian-scrolled and patera-enriched chairs were supplied for Althorp, Northamptonshire (see G. Worsley, 'Eastnor Castle - I', Country Life, 13 May 1993, p. 83; and a pair of chairs, almost certainly supplied to John, 2nd Earl Spencer (d. 1834), sold anonymously [Property of a Lady of Title] in these Rooms, 7 July 1994, lot 118).