A PAIR OF GEORGE II WALNUT OPEN ARMCHAIRS

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THE PROPERTY OF THE LATE DR YVONNE HACKENBROCH ON BEHALF OF NIGHTINGALE HAMMERSON (LOTS 50 - 51) Yvonne Hackenbroch, who died aged a hundred in September 2012, was one of the last surviving members of the Jewish intellectual and artistic milieu that flourished in the city of Frankfurt on Main before and immediately after the First World War. Fluent in German, Italian, French and English, she studied History of Art at Munich University gaining a doctorate there in December 1936. Following the death of her father, one of Frankfurt's leading art dealers, she moved to London and was part of the team that catalogued the Sutton Hoo treasure discovered in 1939. During the War she worked at the British Museum and, following it, moved to Toronto with the collection of Renaissance art given by Viscount Lee of Fareham to the Canadian people for which she was responsible. Later she moved to New York to become curator for Judge Irwin Untermeyer and between 1956 and 1963 she wrote the catalogues of his porcelain, furniture, tapestries, bronzes and silver. She subsequently joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art becoming Consultative Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, mainly specialising in Renaissance Art. She will be remembered by all who knew her in the art world, first in her flat off Fifth Avenue, New York, and, in later years, in Hyde Park Gardens, London, as a wonderful hostess presiding over a never ending stream of intimate lunches and dinners. They were the equivalent of an art salon adapted to twentieth century living. Every meal seemed to be attended by leading museum curators, auction house specialists and dealers from around the world with younger members of the art world strategically placed next to someone who might at some time help their budding careers. Such thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit were typical of an indomitable and very remarkable scholar.

A PAIR OF GEORGE II WALNUT OPEN ARMCHAIRS

CIRCA 1730-40, DIFFERENCES IN CONSTRUCTION AND CARVING

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE II WALNUT OPEN ARMCHAIRS
CIRCA 1730-40, DIFFERENCES IN CONSTRUCTION AND CARVING
Each with a serpentine toprail centred by shell cresting above a foliate-carved splat and outscrolled arm supports, the drop-in seat upholstered in associated red floral needlework above a waved seatrail centred by a floral spray, on cabriole legs headed by acanthus and terminating in claw feet, each numbered '1276', one chair with beech rails, the other with oak and walnut, the variations consistant with workshop practice
42 in. (107 cm.) high; 27½ in. (70 cm.) wide; 24 in. (61 cm.) deep (2)

Provenance

Mallett & Son, The Octagon, Bath, 1929.

Literature

Mallett & Son, Connoisseur, 1929.

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Lot Essay

These chairs belong to a group with distinctive double-serpentine front apron lobed in the middle, similar low relief carving and walnut veneer; the design and decorative treatment suggesting they were possibly made by the same closely-knit group of craftsman. Although the maker has not been positively identified, Lucy Wood associates this group of chairs to others whose carving she describes as being in the Dutch manner, and conjectures a possible attribution to Henry Hill of Marlborough (L. Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, vol. I, 2008, p. 396).
The group to which the present chairs belong includes a chair in the Percival D. Griffiths collection, and four chairs formerly in the collection of Mrs. David Gubbay, illustrated in the Saloon at Clandon Park, Surrey (R. W. Symonds, English Furniture from Charles II to George II, London, 1929, p. 149, fig. 96; J. Fowler, J. Cornforth, English Decoration in the 18th Century, 1974, plate XXVII). Another very similar armchair was in the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1911 (H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, p. 69, fig. 80). A suite of ten chairs from the stock of M. Harris & Sons also belong to this group (L. Wood, ibid., p. 393).
Other related examples include a pair of the same model, previously at Middleton Hall, Northumberland (until 1947), sold Christie's London, 10 July 2003, lot 52 (£59,750 including premium) together with a pair of matching side chairs, lot 53 (£43,020 including premium).

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