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Lot Essay
The chairs, whose antique-fluted splat and serpentined and voluted frame enriched with shell and Roman foliage, are designed in the George II 'Roman' fashion. They relates closely to chairs from Grendey's workshop. Their distinctive hipped profile of their cabriole legs and foliate-carved brackets closely related to the documented suite supplied by Giles Grendey for Gunton Park (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p. 243, fig. 437). In 1931, the historian/advisor R.W. Symonds wrote of the Gunton Park chair pattern that 'one might infer that all chairs and stools with this leg came from Grendey's workshop' (see R.W. Symonds, 'More about Labelled Furniture', The Connoisseur, December 1931, p.407, fig.VIII). The profile of the back legs and ball-and-claw feet appear on another set of dining chairs, some of which bear partial Grendey labels (C. Gilbert, op. cit.,fig. 434).
Up to five further chairs from this set are currently known. They include three side chairs, one of which also had the identical exhibition label, from the Estate of Halstead B. Vanderpoel at Christie's, New York, 8 April 2004, lot 181. An armchair and a side chair are illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, vol.II, p.89, figs.86-87. Another side chair attributed to Grendey with the almost identical back was sold anonymously at Christie's, London 15 September 2005, lot 58.
Up to five further chairs from this set are currently known. They include three side chairs, one of which also had the identical exhibition label, from the Estate of Halstead B. Vanderpoel at Christie's, New York, 8 April 2004, lot 181. An armchair and a side chair are illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, vol.II, p.89, figs.86-87. Another side chair attributed to Grendey with the almost identical back was sold anonymously at Christie's, London 15 September 2005, lot 58.