LATE 18TH EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A SET OF EIGHT GEORGE III MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS
Late 18th early 19th Century
Comprising two open armchairs and six side chairs, each with shield-shaped back and lyre-shaped pierced splat, the arms with leaf-carved terminals above acanthus husks, above a padded drop-in seat covered in later floral-patterned needlework, with serpentine seat rail, on square tapering channelled legs joined by stretchers, later blocks (8)

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Lot Essay

The form of parlour chair, with Roman shield-shaped back, appears to have been introduced in the 1770s by the architect James Wyatt (d. 1813), and was later popularised by Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co's Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788. A similar suite, but with shorter laurel garlands festooning their lyre-fretted splats, formed part of the Gascoigne family furnishings of Lotherton Hall, Yorkshire (C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, vol. I, Leeds, 1978, no. 87).

The incisions on the seatrail, up to VI on the side chairs and III on the armchairs, indicate that the current set features at least the first six chairs of the set, which possibly numbered no more. There may, of course, have been at least a further pair of armchairs.

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