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Lot Essay
This group of chairs would appear superficially to be a product of the Buckinghamshire chair-making centres. However recent research shows that chair-makers in Northamptonshire adopted many of the Chiltern chair designs and added to them in particular ways. These features include the use of bell-shaped seats and the use of backs with ornate ornamentation including, as in this case, decorative toprails and splats. Often the legs are ornately ring-turned as well or with unusual ball turnings.
Within the Northamptonshire tradition, Windsor chair-makers were largely in evidence in the county town of Northampton; one maker who regularly struck his work with a large 'CP' on the rear of the seat was Charles Powell of Bridge Street, Northampton (circa 1830). It is his identified work and the chairs of John March of Geddington (fl.1760-1776), a village near to Northampton, which have enabled partial identification of this chair group to be made. A chair made by John March is illustrated in Dr B Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge, 1990, p.124, fig.NE59.
Dr B Cotton, January 2004
Within the Northamptonshire tradition, Windsor chair-makers were largely in evidence in the county town of Northampton; one maker who regularly struck his work with a large 'CP' on the rear of the seat was Charles Powell of Bridge Street, Northampton (circa 1830). It is his identified work and the chairs of John March of Geddington (fl.1760-1776), a village near to Northampton, which have enabled partial identification of this chair group to be made. A chair made by John March is illustrated in Dr B Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge, 1990, p.124, fig.NE59.
Dr B Cotton, January 2004