CIRCA 1715

This rare set of India back seat-furniture is undoubtedly inspired by Anglo-Dutch designs by Daniel Marot (d. 1752), as published in his Nouveaux Livres de Licts de differentes penseez (circa 1703). The India back was so named for its close resemblance to Chinese chairs of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties such as the shape of the top rail, the curvature of the back, the cabriole supports and a lower cross-rail in the back. The design of these chairs closely related to an armchair at Cumberland Lodge in the Great Park, Windsor (illustrated H. Hudson, Cumberland Lodge, A House through History, Guildford, 1989, p. 64, fig. 38). The latter was almost certainly in the collection of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (d. 1744), and probably came to Cumberland Lodge following the Duchess’s appointment to the Rangership of the Great Park, an office in the gift of the sovereign, Queen Anne. Sarah together with her husband, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, engaged the finest craftsmen including the Royal cabinetmaker to George I, James Moore (d. 1726), to furnish their palatial country seat Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.
Sets of these chairs are unusual with only a small number extant; a comparable set is in the collection of the National Trust at Montacute House, Somerset (A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Woodbridge, 2009, pp. 158-159, plates 4:27, 4:28). These, similarly to the present set, feature journeymen’s stamps, possibly identifying the joiner and the caner, and interestingly a number of journeymen were employed to execute sets of chairs to a prototype design. The bills in the Lord Chamberlain’s Accounts of the Royal chair maker, Richard Roberts, show that most of the India backed chairs made between 1718 and 1720 for the Royal Palaces were caned (ibid. p. 158).