IN THE MANNER OF WILLIAM HALLETT, MID-18TH CENTURY

The George II parlour chairs' Ionic-scrolled 'vase' splats and serpentined 'truss' pilasters reflect the 'India-back' fashion, combined with 'Roman' ornament, as adopted by the chair-makers Messrs Landall & Gordon for their Little Argyle Street trade-sign about 1740 (C. Gilbert and T. Murdoch, John Channon and brass-inlaid furniture 1730-1760, London, 1993, p. 20, fig. 12). Their legs are sculpted with Roman acanthus and bas-reliefs of Venus, the nature-deity's shell badge and terminate in eagle-claws to evoke the 'banquets of the gods' and the poets' history of Jupiter and his shepherd cup-bearer Ganymede as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. This leg pattern, including falcon-type rings, was chosen in 1735 by the 6th Viscount Irwin for the 'Crimson Damask [Drawing Room] Chairs' of his Mayfair residence in Grosvenor Square, and executed at the fashionable Long Acre premises established in the early 1730s by William Hallett (d.1781) (see J. Lomax, 'Two chairs', National Art Collections Fund Review, 2002, p.111). In view of the contemporary popularity of en suite furnishings, there is a possibility that Hallett could have executed the present chair for Lord Irwin's dining room.