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Lot Essay
The sofas are designed in the 'antique' manner promoted by the connoisseur Thomas Hope whose Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, was published in 1807, and by George Smith in A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1808). The scrolled end relates closely to Smith's design for a 'Chaise Longue' (pl.65) while the lion monopodia legs and square back are strikingly similar to those illustrated on two sofas (pl.59).
The sofas are pictured in a photograph of around 1892 at Swalcliffe Manor, Oxfordshire. Seated is Arthur P.Davison (1866-1955), whose father John Robert Davison was M.P. for Durham, and served on the Privy Council with the 8th Duke of Argyll. His wife Dorothy (née Norris) is standing behind. It is conceivable that the sofas, with their ash seat rails and legs indicating a possible Scottish origin, came from a Scottish property, as suggested by the family tradition.
Yet Swalcliffe had been leased in 1848 by Dorothy's grandfather Henry Norris, J.P., D.L. (1810-89) and passed after his death to his son Henry Crawley Norris, so it seems very likely that the sofas were actually inherited by Dorothy Davison from her grand-parents soon after the photograph was taken.
The sofas are pictured in a photograph of around 1892 at Swalcliffe Manor, Oxfordshire. Seated is Arthur P.Davison (1866-1955), whose father John Robert Davison was M.P. for Durham, and served on the Privy Council with the 8th Duke of Argyll. His wife Dorothy (née Norris) is standing behind. It is conceivable that the sofas, with their ash seat rails and legs indicating a possible Scottish origin, came from a Scottish property, as suggested by the family tradition.
Yet Swalcliffe had been leased in 1848 by Dorothy's grandfather Henry Norris, J.P., D.L. (1810-89) and passed after his death to his son Henry Crawley Norris, so it seems very likely that the sofas were actually inherited by Dorothy Davison from her grand-parents soon after the photograph was taken.