BY JAMES AND MATHEW MORISON OF EDINBURGH AND AYR, ALMOST CERTAINLY SUPPLIED CIRCA 1820-1823, INCLUDING TWO ARMCHAIRS

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A SET OF EIGHTEEN SCOTTISH GEORGE IV MAHOGANY DINING CHAIRS
BY JAMES AND MATHEW MORISON OF EDINBURGH AND AYR, ALMOST CERTAINLY SUPPLIED CIRCA 1820-1823, INCLUDING TWO ARMCHAIRS
Each with a carved bowed paper-scroll top rail above red leather seats on lotus carved turned legs, two chairs with seat-rails labelled 'Blairquhan, 8/334' others with various indistinct chalk and pencil inscriptions to the seat rails 'Clowes'(?), one seat-rail inscribed 'Newcastle'(?) another inscribed 'Sir David Blair', some old restorations, differences in age of leather seats, eight chairs with 19th century seat-covers (18)

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Lot Essay

These dining chairs are first recorded by Sir David Hunter Blair on 16 May 1820 as '16 chairs at 50/. = £40.0.0 -- 2 Arm ditto at £8 = £16.0.0. Calculation from Morison, Ayr' (Blairquhan Archive).

These Grecian reed-incised chairs have palm-flowered columnar legs and scroll tablet rails displaying triumphal palms issuing from Ionic volutes, while the ribboned splats tie bas-reliefs that are richly fretted with Egyptian lotus-flowers. They recall 'Grecian' patterns in Rudolph Ackermann's 1815 Repository of Arts, but appear to be particularly indebted to seat patterns in R. Brown's Rudiments of Drawing Cabinet and Upholstery Furniture (2nd ed. 1822, pl.7). Their morocco leather was coloured red in Etruscan Pompeian fashion.

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