IN THE MANNER OF JOHN COBB, CIRCA 1775

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE III SOLID MAHOGANY ARMCHAIRS
IN THE MANNER OF JOHN COBB, CIRCA 1775
Each with sunflower carved cartouche-shaped padded back, arms and seat, on cabriole legs, one stamped IR, the other N to back rail, each front rail with contemporary ink inscription G.S. No. 75, with inventory label inscribed D.R. 53.1868 or D.R. 53.1867

Provenance

Acquired from Stuart and Turner, London, 1953.

Literature

D. Fennimore et al., The David and Peggy Rockefeller Collection: Decorative Arts, New York, 1992, vol. IV, p. 288, no. 296.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

These elegantly-serpentine chairs, designed in the Louis XV manner, relate to the fashionable 'French' or 'cabriolet' chairs of the 1760s and 70s such as were illustrated by Thomas Chippendale in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1762, pl. XXIII, and Thomas Malton in his Compleat Treatise on Perspective, 1775, pl. XXXIII, fig. 131.
The present chairs are similar to a group of armchairs which have very similar curvilinear form and gadrooned borders traditionally associated with John Cobb (d.1778) of St. Martin's Lane, 'upholsterer' to King George II from 1761 in partnership with William Vile (d.1767). A set of six mahogany chairs with gadrooned moldings was supplied by Cobb in the 1770s to Philip Yorke for Erdigg, Wales. Another from the Leidesdorf Collection was sold Sotheby's New York, 28 June 1974, lot 138, while another set of six was exhibited by Mallett at the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair, 1997.

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