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Lot Essay
The chairs with their open backs headed by pierced roundels are designed in the neo-classical style that Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) adopted in the latter part of his career and were almost certainly supplied to Sir James Ibbetson, Bt, for Denton Hall, Yorkshire, around 1778.
The Ibbetsons were wealthy Leeds cloth merchants who ascended to the gentry in 1745 when they purchased a Baronetcy, and Sir James Ibbetson enjoyed a fortunate marriage to an heiress, the only daughter of a rich wool merchant from Halifax. Denton Hall was built by the prominent York architect James Carr, who was employed by Ibbetson after the previous Hall burnt down. The house was completed around 1778 and Ibbetson employed a variety of craftsmen and cabinet-makers to furnish the mansion. Accounts show that he spent £1068 with at least twelve firms, including Gillows of Lancaster, and a small payment to Mayhew & Ince of London, but more than half the total (£551) was spent in the employment of Thomas Chippendale (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1778, vol. I, pp. 286 – 287).
Chippendale, though established in St. Martin's Lane, London from 1754, was the 'local man', he was born in Otley just four miles from Denton, and his reputation in Yorkshire couldn't have been higher having been engaged by Sir Rowland Winn, Bt, at Nostell Priory (from 1766), Edwin Lascelles at Harewood House (from 1767) and William Constable at Burton Constable (from 1768), all of them extensive and valuable commissions. The Denton commission is intriguing because, though detailed accounts have not been discovered, it is the only house in the parish of his birth that he is known to have furnished. Chippendale must almost certainly have supplied the superior furniture for the main reception rooms including the dining-room, while others fitted out the secondary apartments (ibid.).
The chairs offered here correspond very closely to a set that Chippendale had supplied around 1770 for the Coffee Room at Harewood. The Harewood set was described as '10 Oval backed Satton Wood Chairs covered with Needle Work’ (illustrated, ibid. vol. II, pp. 103. Fig. 173) , and are probably among the chairs that, in the summer of 1770, Chippendale’s foreman William Reid was described as 'Ripeing, new stuffing and covering the chairs for the Coffee and Billiard Room’. The present lot differs in the choice of timber and the leg pattern, the Harewood set having turned legs, but the laurel-wreath displayed on the roundels of the Denton chairs is more elaborate than the simple pearled decoration on the Harewood chairs. The attribution to Chippendale on stylistic and geographic grounds is strengthened by the presence of typical constructional features such as cramp cuts in the seat rails and screw holes for the securing of transport battens.
In 1861 Denton Hall passed by descent to the Wyvill family, Marmaduke Wyvil having married Laura Ibbetson in 1845, and they occupied the house until 1902, when they returned to Constable Burton, near Leyburn, taking with them much of the furniture. A 1932 sale by Messrs. Hollis and Webb dispersed the contents of Constable Burton, including a marquetry commode and pier tables, items that seem to correspond with furniture recorded in the best dressing room at Denton Hall in an 1839 inventory. The chairs however must have been sold privately well before this time as they are illustrated in the 1922 catalogue of the New York dealer Arthur S.Vernay.
The Ibbetsons were wealthy Leeds cloth merchants who ascended to the gentry in 1745 when they purchased a Baronetcy, and Sir James Ibbetson enjoyed a fortunate marriage to an heiress, the only daughter of a rich wool merchant from Halifax. Denton Hall was built by the prominent York architect James Carr, who was employed by Ibbetson after the previous Hall burnt down. The house was completed around 1778 and Ibbetson employed a variety of craftsmen and cabinet-makers to furnish the mansion. Accounts show that he spent £1068 with at least twelve firms, including Gillows of Lancaster, and a small payment to Mayhew & Ince of London, but more than half the total (£551) was spent in the employment of Thomas Chippendale (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1778, vol. I, pp. 286 – 287).
Chippendale, though established in St. Martin's Lane, London from 1754, was the 'local man', he was born in Otley just four miles from Denton, and his reputation in Yorkshire couldn't have been higher having been engaged by Sir Rowland Winn, Bt, at Nostell Priory (from 1766), Edwin Lascelles at Harewood House (from 1767) and William Constable at Burton Constable (from 1768), all of them extensive and valuable commissions. The Denton commission is intriguing because, though detailed accounts have not been discovered, it is the only house in the parish of his birth that he is known to have furnished. Chippendale must almost certainly have supplied the superior furniture for the main reception rooms including the dining-room, while others fitted out the secondary apartments (ibid.).
The chairs offered here correspond very closely to a set that Chippendale had supplied around 1770 for the Coffee Room at Harewood. The Harewood set was described as '10 Oval backed Satton Wood Chairs covered with Needle Work’ (illustrated, ibid. vol. II, pp. 103. Fig. 173) , and are probably among the chairs that, in the summer of 1770, Chippendale’s foreman William Reid was described as 'Ripeing, new stuffing and covering the chairs for the Coffee and Billiard Room’. The present lot differs in the choice of timber and the leg pattern, the Harewood set having turned legs, but the laurel-wreath displayed on the roundels of the Denton chairs is more elaborate than the simple pearled decoration on the Harewood chairs. The attribution to Chippendale on stylistic and geographic grounds is strengthened by the presence of typical constructional features such as cramp cuts in the seat rails and screw holes for the securing of transport battens.
In 1861 Denton Hall passed by descent to the Wyvill family, Marmaduke Wyvil having married Laura Ibbetson in 1845, and they occupied the house until 1902, when they returned to Constable Burton, near Leyburn, taking with them much of the furniture. A 1932 sale by Messrs. Hollis and Webb dispersed the contents of Constable Burton, including a marquetry commode and pier tables, items that seem to correspond with furniture recorded in the best dressing room at Denton Hall in an 1839 inventory. The chairs however must have been sold privately well before this time as they are illustrated in the 1922 catalogue of the New York dealer Arthur S.Vernay.