THREE EARLY 18TH CENTURY, ONE 20TH CENTURY

The chairs have reeded frames with Venus shell badges displayed in arched cartouches in a manner derived from a Louis Quatorze chair pattern issued around 1700 in Daniel Marot's Second Livre d'Apartments. The more robust Roman fashion of the 1720s is reflected in their acanthus-enriched and trussed pilaster legs, which terminate in Jupiter eagle-claws. Chairs of related character, with lion-monopodia, were inventoried in 1743 at Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire by the Soho cabinet-maker and upholsterer, William Bradshaw (d. 1775). This present set of chairs come from Pepper Arden, Yorkshire. Although the house was sold by the Arden family in 1870, and changed hands again later in the 19th century, it is possible that the chairs were commissioned for the early l8th century house. Sotheby's sale in 1971 contained an early 18th century four-post bed with the contemporary needlework hangings (lot 152) and a set of walnut side chairs with coverings en suite. Such a suite is characteristic of furnishing in the early 18th century, although not at all of the late 19th, so it seems possible that the two buyers in the late 19th century bought the house complete with its original furniture.