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Lot Essay
The chair-back pattern, with central patera, was introduced around 1800 and features in Thomas Hope's design of a hollow-seated chair with Grecian-srolled feet issued in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807 (pl. 11). It was adopted by Gillows of London and Lancaster for dining-chairs supplied in 1803 for Mere Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire (sold by the Executors of the late Mrs. Helen Langford-Brooke, Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 106) and on another set of chairs bearing their journeymen's names (sold Christie's New York, 18 October 2001, lot 304.)
With their caned tablet rails and flowered paterae these chairs also relate to dining-chairs sold from Sir Walter Gilbey's collection at Cambridge House by Knight, Frank and Rutley, 8 March 1910, lot 130.
The present chairs closely relate to one that is thought to have come from Hope's Duchess Street mansion and has been attributed to the Mount Street firm of Marsh and Tatham (sold from the collection of the late Mrs. Marjorie Beatrix Fairbarns, in these Rooms, 9 July 1992, lot 87 and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). The same back and caned tablet toprail, appear on three chairs, with Grecian-scrolled feet, sold anonymously, Christie's South Kensington, 27 September 2000, lot 557. The basic back pattern also appears on a suite of chairs in the Royal Palace of Tullgarn in Sweden, and these bear the label of the John Street cabinet-maker Thomas Wilmott (C. Gilbert, The Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p. 56 and fig. 1010).
With their caned tablet rails and flowered paterae these chairs also relate to dining-chairs sold from Sir Walter Gilbey's collection at Cambridge House by Knight, Frank and Rutley, 8 March 1910, lot 130.
The present chairs closely relate to one that is thought to have come from Hope's Duchess Street mansion and has been attributed to the Mount Street firm of Marsh and Tatham (sold from the collection of the late Mrs. Marjorie Beatrix Fairbarns, in these Rooms, 9 July 1992, lot 87 and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). The same back and caned tablet toprail, appear on three chairs, with Grecian-scrolled feet, sold anonymously, Christie's South Kensington, 27 September 2000, lot 557. The basic back pattern also appears on a suite of chairs in the Royal Palace of Tullgarn in Sweden, and these bear the label of the John Street cabinet-maker Thomas Wilmott (C. Gilbert, The Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p. 56 and fig. 1010).