CIRCA 1760

These beautifully sculpted and serpentined Drawing Room chairs, with Roman triumphal arched backs, are designed in the George II 'French' fashion promoted by Thomas Chippendale's, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. Their 'picturesque' antique and flute-hollowed frames, being intended no doubt for damask upholstery enwreathed by Roman acanthus foliage, fuse the Earth and Water Elements; and are wrapped by 'Pan' reeds and acanthus; while their truss-scrolled pilaster legs terminate in wave-scrolled and water-bubbled cartouches. Four chairs of this set, formerly in the possession of Messrs Phillips of Hitchin Ltd., are likely to have been acquired on the advice of the celebrated furniture historian R. W. Symonds by H. J. (Jim) Joel (d.1978) for Childwick Bury, Hertfordshire in the mid-20th century (see M. Jourdain and F. Rose, English Furniture: The Georgian Period, London, 1963, fig. 34 and sold by H. J. Joel, Esq., Childwick Bury, Hertfordshire, Christie's house sale, 15 May 1978, lot 67). A pair of chairs of this pattern, but with altered backs, was acquired in 1939 from Frank Partridge & Sons, Ltd by Sir Henry Price (see Capt. W. Llewellyn-Amos, 'Wakehurst Place', The Antique Collector, January-February 1943, p.5). An armchair of this pattern is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (D. Fitz-Gerald, Georgian Furniture in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1969, pl. 102).