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拍品專文
The chairs have reeded frames with Venus shell badges displayed in arched cartouches in a manner derived from a Louis XIV chair pattern issued in circa 1700 in Daniel Marot's Second Livre d'Appartments. The more robust Roman fashion of the 1720s is reflected in their acanthus-enriched and trussed pilaster legs, which terminate in Jupiter eagle-claws. Closely related clasped acanthus carving is found on the cabriole supports of a set of armchairs by the Soho cabinet-maker and upholsterer, William Bradshaw (d. 1775), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; these chairs were originally at Chesterfield House, London (G. Beard, 'William Bradshaw: Furniture Maker and Tapestry Weaver’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 37 (2002), p. 168, fig. 1). Similarly carved ornamentation is also on a mahogany and parcel-gilt side table attributed to Bradshaw, sold Christie's, London, 23 November 2006, lot 60 (£108,000 including premium). Related carving features on two suites of seat furniture at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, commissioned by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, possibly supplied by Bradshaw, or alternatively by Paul Saunders (d. 1771) and George Smith Bradshaw (d. 1812) who took over William Bradshaw's premises at 59 Greek Street in 1759 and almost certainly copied Bradshaw's earlier designs (R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, vol. I, London, 1954, p. 275, fig. 155). Bradshaw's recorded work for Thomas Coke is predominantly during the 1740s, he received £429 14 shillings for furniture at Holkham in 1742, and between 1740-47 supplied eighteen chairs with leather seats to the library and dining room of 'Mr. Coke's apartment in the London House' (Thanet House) (Ed. G. Beard, C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p. 100). Furthermore, chairs of related character, with lion-monopodia were inventoried in 1743 by Bradshaw at Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire ('Ditchley – II, the seat of Mr. Ronald Tree’, Country Life, 10 June 1934, p. 625, fig. 6).