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Lot Essay
This settee is the ‘missing’ settee from a suite of seat-furniture originally comprising two settees and six armchairs from Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire. One settee and four of the armchairs from this suite are now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1). This suite with a well-documented provenance is a rare example of seat-furniture in the ‘French’ style that appears to have been made specifically for French tapestry covers. The settee, and the suite to which it belongs, is attributed to the cabinet-maker and upholsterer, Paul Saunders (d. 1771), who was undoubtedly inspired by Chippendale in its design; Saunders was a contemporary of Chippendale, and a subscriber to the first edition of the Director (1754). Furthermore, as the tapestry-maker to George III, and combined with his cabinet-making skills, Saunders was fully able to supply seat-furniture frames made specifically for pre-existing tapestry covers.
HISTORY OF THE SUITE
The set was probably commissioned by Peregrine, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven (1714-78) following his marriage to Mary Panton of Newmarket in 1750 when a significant refurbishment of Grimsthorpe Castle occurred.
In the 1812 inventory for Grimsthorpe, the suite was recorded in ‘Lady Willoughby’s Drawing Room’ where it was described as: ‘Two mahogany and gilt carved Sofas, stuff’d backs and seats cover’d with Tapestry de Goblins and brass nailed. Six Arm Chairs exactly to correspond with Do.’ (2). ‘Lady Willoughby’ was Priscilla, Baroness Willoughby de Eresby (1761-1828), who inherited Grimsthorpe on the death of the 5th Duke of Ancaster in 1809.
On 11 March 1829, the suite was offered for sale by Christie’s, and described in ‘A Catalogue of the first portion of the very elegant effects, the property of the Late Rt. Hon. Lord Gwydir, removed from Grimsthorpe Castle, for the purpose of sale’ as:
Lot 80 – Six large fauteuils, with richly-carved and partly gilt frames, the backs, arms, and seats stuffed and covered with Beauvais tapestry, of pastoral designs, with flowers; also, loose holland covers
Lot 81 – A large settee, or high-back couch, to correspond
Lot 82 - Ditto
The suite was purchased by 'Pecotti', an agent representing Peter Robert, 2nd Baron Gwydir, 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby (1782-1865), Lady Willoughby’s eldest son and heir, and it was returned to Grimsthorpe. The settees sold for £16 16s each, and the chairs £7 15s each.
THE SETTEES FROM THE SUITE
The settees are not included in the 1867 or 1901-3 inventories for Grimsthorpe although in the latter manuscript there is a reference to them: 'Two settees of similar design, and with similar coverings [to the chairs] were purchased by the same agent [in the March 1829 sale, and on behalf of Lord Gwydir] but are not at Grimsthorpe'; this suggests they had been moved to another mansion, or more likely sold. They did not re-emerge again until 22 November 1950 when they were sold by Christie’s on behalf of Baroness Burton, and described in the sale catalogue as:
‘Lot 321 – A pair of Beauvis tapestry and giltwood settees, 6 ft. 10 in. wide – the framework probably English – second quarter of the 18th century / The giltwood borders to the shaped backs carved with wave ornament and foliage, the arm terminations and supports carved with cabochon and foliage and with shaped seat frames supported on cabriole legs carved on the knees with similar motifs and terminating in foliage scroll feet. The panels to the backs covered in Beauvais tapestry finely woven in colours… / From the Bretby Park Heirlooms, 1887.’
The mention of the ‘Bretby Park Heirlooms’ is puzzling; on the 29 May 1918, a suite of seat-furniture, part of the heirlooms, was sold ‘under the Wills of the 7th Earl of Chesterfield and the Dowager Countess of Chesterfield’ by Christie’s, and the description bears a slight resemblance to the Grimsthorpe suite:
Lot 115 – A suite of old English furniture, of Louis XV design, the frameworks carved with shells and foliage, partly painted and gilt, the seats and backs stuffed, and covered with needlework with flowers and key-pattern in coloured wools, consisting of:
Six arm-chairs
Two settees – 7 ft. wide
However, we know that the chairs remained at Grimsthorpe until sold in 1934, their history is described below, so the Bretby link seems to be flawed.
The pair to this settee was subsequently featured in the Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition catalogue: The Age of Elegance: The Rococo and its Effect, 1959, and in 1971, it was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. However, in 1978, the whereabouts of the present settee was ‘unknown’ (3).
THE CHAIRS FROM THE SUITE
The chairs are featured in the 1867 and 1901-3 inventories. In 1924, the chairs were photographed by Country Life in the King James’s Drawing Room at Grimsthorpe (4). On the 11 May 1934, lot 168, the chairs were offered for sale at Sotheby’s by Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 2nd Earl of Ancaster (1867-1951), but were withdrawn from the sale and sold privately. In 1949, four of the armchairs were acquired by Judge Irwin Untermyer (1886-1973) to form part of the Untermyer collection although by this date the chairs had been stripped of their gilding, and original upholstery (5). The two remaining chairs entered the collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. (1909-88), sold Parke-Bernet, 30 April 1960, lot 227, and then, Arthur Leidesdorf until sold Sotheby’s, 27 June 1974, lot 31. These two chairs are now in a private collection in the USA.
PAUL SAUNDERS, CABINET-MAKER AND ‘TAPESTRY-MAKER’
The settee offered here, and the suite from which it is a part, can be attributed to the workshop of Paul Saunders (1722-71), an 'upholder' (upholsterer) and cabinet-maker of Soho, London on stylistic grounds. The form and ornament of this elegant settee reflects the influence of ‘French’ designs for chairs in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754 (pls. XVIII-XIX). Saunders was a subscriber to the Director, and was undoubtedly inspired by Chippendale’s designs to the extent that in 1928, two prominent furniture historians, H. Avray Tipping and Christopher Hussey erroneously stated that the chairs from this suite were ‘probably by Chippendale’ although there is no stylistic or documentary evidence to support this (6). Although most of Saunders’ work is undocumented, he supplied a closely related suite of chairs to the 1st Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall, Norfolk in 1757 (7). This settee’s cabriole leg with its foliate carved cabochon and distinctive scrolled foot is a variation of the Holkham suite and is possibly unique to Saunders’ workshop. An armchair, with closely related carving was bequeathed by the collector C. D. Rotch to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and is presently in their collection (8); a settee from the same suite, sold Christie’s, New York, 21 March 2015, lot 1044.
Saunders’ early career began on 7 December 1738 when he was apprenticed for seven years to Michael Bradshaw, citizen and ‘upholder’ of London. In 1753, Saunders and his business partner, George Smith Bradshaw were established at 59 Greek Street, Soho, the former workshop of the upholsterer and cabinet-maker, William Bradshaw (1700-75), from whom they probably acquired stock and pattern books; in May of the same year, the partnership was described as ‘upholsterers of Greek Street’. Recent research shows that Saunders was probably more prolific as a cabinet-maker in the 1750s than previously thought; from February 1752-July 1757, ‘Paul Saunders & Co.’ was supplying furniture and overseeing the complete refurbishment of Exchequer House, 10 Downing Street, and the following year, Oatlands Park, Surrey, and Clinton Lodge, Hampshire for Henry Pelham Clinton, 9th Earl of Lincoln, later 2nd Duke of Newcastle (1720-94); the total commission came to over £5000 (9). Furthermore, from June 1749 to February 1759, he was employed by Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1715-86), a commission that came to more than £2000 (10). On 6 February 1755, and with respect to the above, the firm was referred to by the Public Advisor as ‘the Workshop of Mess. Smyth, Bradshaw & Saunders, Upholders & Cabinetmakers, Soho’.
THE ORIGINAL FRENCH TAPESTRY COVERS
The 1901-3 Grimsthorpe inventory describes the original French Gobelins tapestry covers for this suite of seat-furniture. The chair backs were from a series entitled ‘Jeux d’Enfants’ after designs by Boucher, and the chair seats portrayed scenes from ‘La Fables de La Fontaine’. The Gobelins inventory of 1792 lists among its holdings of Boucher paintings, '31 petit tableaux representant des Jeux d’Enfants, tant originaux que copies'. Five of these are extant and show figures of children that often appear as tapestry chair-coverings in sets that sometimes, as in the original chair backs for the Grimsthorpe armchairs, includes ‘The Boy with the Bagpipes’ (11).
After their sale in 1934, the tapestry covers were removed from the armchairs, and applied to six modern armchairs, which were purchased by Dr. F. Mannheimer of Amsterdam, and given to the Rijksmuseum after the war where they remain today. The Grimsthorpe chairs, and by association, this settee and its pair in the Met, were evidently made to accommodate the French tapestry covers, and as such are possibly ‘among the earliest pieces in England so conceived’, and ‘emerge as a valuable document in the eighteenth-century development of Francophile taste in England’ (12). This leads to Saunders, who as the preeminent London tapestry-maker, owner of ‘The Royal Tapestry Manufactury, Soho Square’, and from September 1757, tapestry-maker to His Majesty, George II, in addition to being a cabinet-maker would have been fully conversant in the complexities of matching covers to seat-frames.
(1) Accession nos. 1971-236; 64.101.987-990.
(2) W. Rieder, ‘Eighteenth-Century Chairs in the Untermyer Collection’, Apollo, March 1978, vol. 107, p. 184.
(3) Ibid., p. 185, f/n 18.
(4) C. Hussey, ‘Grimsthorpe – III Lincolnshire: The seat of the Earl of Ancaster’, Country Life, 26 April 1924, p. 653, fig. 7.
(5) J. Gloag and Y. Hackenbroch, English Furniture in the Irwin Untermeyer Collection, Cambridge, 1958, pls. 116-117.
(6) Rieder, op. cit., p. 184.
(7) A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, p. 211, figs. 378-379.
(8) W.50-1962.
(9) S. Goodman, ‘The 9th Earl of Lincoln (1720-1794) and the refurbishment of Exchequer House, 10 Downing Street’, The British Art Journal, Winter 2017/2018, vol. XVIII, no. 3, pp. 3-7.
(10) A. Aymonino, M. Guerci, ‘The architectural transformation of Northumberland House under the 7th Duke of Somerset and the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1748-86’, Antiquaries Journal 2016, Appendix.
(11) E. Standen, ‘Tapestry panel for a fire-screen’, Decorative Art from the S.H. Kress Collection, Aylesbury, 1964, pp. 280-281.
(12) Rieder, op. cit., p. 184.
HISTORY OF THE SUITE
The set was probably commissioned by Peregrine, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven (1714-78) following his marriage to Mary Panton of Newmarket in 1750 when a significant refurbishment of Grimsthorpe Castle occurred.
In the 1812 inventory for Grimsthorpe, the suite was recorded in ‘Lady Willoughby’s Drawing Room’ where it was described as: ‘Two mahogany and gilt carved Sofas, stuff’d backs and seats cover’d with Tapestry de Goblins and brass nailed. Six Arm Chairs exactly to correspond with Do.’ (2). ‘Lady Willoughby’ was Priscilla, Baroness Willoughby de Eresby (1761-1828), who inherited Grimsthorpe on the death of the 5th Duke of Ancaster in 1809.
On 11 March 1829, the suite was offered for sale by Christie’s, and described in ‘A Catalogue of the first portion of the very elegant effects, the property of the Late Rt. Hon. Lord Gwydir, removed from Grimsthorpe Castle, for the purpose of sale’ as:
Lot 80 – Six large fauteuils, with richly-carved and partly gilt frames, the backs, arms, and seats stuffed and covered with Beauvais tapestry, of pastoral designs, with flowers; also, loose holland covers
Lot 81 – A large settee, or high-back couch, to correspond
Lot 82 - Ditto
The suite was purchased by 'Pecotti', an agent representing Peter Robert, 2nd Baron Gwydir, 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby (1782-1865), Lady Willoughby’s eldest son and heir, and it was returned to Grimsthorpe. The settees sold for £16 16s each, and the chairs £7 15s each.
THE SETTEES FROM THE SUITE
The settees are not included in the 1867 or 1901-3 inventories for Grimsthorpe although in the latter manuscript there is a reference to them: 'Two settees of similar design, and with similar coverings [to the chairs] were purchased by the same agent [in the March 1829 sale, and on behalf of Lord Gwydir] but are not at Grimsthorpe'; this suggests they had been moved to another mansion, or more likely sold. They did not re-emerge again until 22 November 1950 when they were sold by Christie’s on behalf of Baroness Burton, and described in the sale catalogue as:
‘Lot 321 – A pair of Beauvis tapestry and giltwood settees, 6 ft. 10 in. wide – the framework probably English – second quarter of the 18th century / The giltwood borders to the shaped backs carved with wave ornament and foliage, the arm terminations and supports carved with cabochon and foliage and with shaped seat frames supported on cabriole legs carved on the knees with similar motifs and terminating in foliage scroll feet. The panels to the backs covered in Beauvais tapestry finely woven in colours… / From the Bretby Park Heirlooms, 1887.’
The mention of the ‘Bretby Park Heirlooms’ is puzzling; on the 29 May 1918, a suite of seat-furniture, part of the heirlooms, was sold ‘under the Wills of the 7th Earl of Chesterfield and the Dowager Countess of Chesterfield’ by Christie’s, and the description bears a slight resemblance to the Grimsthorpe suite:
Lot 115 – A suite of old English furniture, of Louis XV design, the frameworks carved with shells and foliage, partly painted and gilt, the seats and backs stuffed, and covered with needlework with flowers and key-pattern in coloured wools, consisting of:
Six arm-chairs
Two settees – 7 ft. wide
However, we know that the chairs remained at Grimsthorpe until sold in 1934, their history is described below, so the Bretby link seems to be flawed.
The pair to this settee was subsequently featured in the Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition catalogue: The Age of Elegance: The Rococo and its Effect, 1959, and in 1971, it was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. However, in 1978, the whereabouts of the present settee was ‘unknown’ (3).
THE CHAIRS FROM THE SUITE
The chairs are featured in the 1867 and 1901-3 inventories. In 1924, the chairs were photographed by Country Life in the King James’s Drawing Room at Grimsthorpe (4). On the 11 May 1934, lot 168, the chairs were offered for sale at Sotheby’s by Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 2nd Earl of Ancaster (1867-1951), but were withdrawn from the sale and sold privately. In 1949, four of the armchairs were acquired by Judge Irwin Untermyer (1886-1973) to form part of the Untermyer collection although by this date the chairs had been stripped of their gilding, and original upholstery (5). The two remaining chairs entered the collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. (1909-88), sold Parke-Bernet, 30 April 1960, lot 227, and then, Arthur Leidesdorf until sold Sotheby’s, 27 June 1974, lot 31. These two chairs are now in a private collection in the USA.
PAUL SAUNDERS, CABINET-MAKER AND ‘TAPESTRY-MAKER’
The settee offered here, and the suite from which it is a part, can be attributed to the workshop of Paul Saunders (1722-71), an 'upholder' (upholsterer) and cabinet-maker of Soho, London on stylistic grounds. The form and ornament of this elegant settee reflects the influence of ‘French’ designs for chairs in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754 (pls. XVIII-XIX). Saunders was a subscriber to the Director, and was undoubtedly inspired by Chippendale’s designs to the extent that in 1928, two prominent furniture historians, H. Avray Tipping and Christopher Hussey erroneously stated that the chairs from this suite were ‘probably by Chippendale’ although there is no stylistic or documentary evidence to support this (6). Although most of Saunders’ work is undocumented, he supplied a closely related suite of chairs to the 1st Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall, Norfolk in 1757 (7). This settee’s cabriole leg with its foliate carved cabochon and distinctive scrolled foot is a variation of the Holkham suite and is possibly unique to Saunders’ workshop. An armchair, with closely related carving was bequeathed by the collector C. D. Rotch to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and is presently in their collection (8); a settee from the same suite, sold Christie’s, New York, 21 March 2015, lot 1044.
Saunders’ early career began on 7 December 1738 when he was apprenticed for seven years to Michael Bradshaw, citizen and ‘upholder’ of London. In 1753, Saunders and his business partner, George Smith Bradshaw were established at 59 Greek Street, Soho, the former workshop of the upholsterer and cabinet-maker, William Bradshaw (1700-75), from whom they probably acquired stock and pattern books; in May of the same year, the partnership was described as ‘upholsterers of Greek Street’. Recent research shows that Saunders was probably more prolific as a cabinet-maker in the 1750s than previously thought; from February 1752-July 1757, ‘Paul Saunders & Co.’ was supplying furniture and overseeing the complete refurbishment of Exchequer House, 10 Downing Street, and the following year, Oatlands Park, Surrey, and Clinton Lodge, Hampshire for Henry Pelham Clinton, 9th Earl of Lincoln, later 2nd Duke of Newcastle (1720-94); the total commission came to over £5000 (9). Furthermore, from June 1749 to February 1759, he was employed by Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1715-86), a commission that came to more than £2000 (10). On 6 February 1755, and with respect to the above, the firm was referred to by the Public Advisor as ‘the Workshop of Mess. Smyth, Bradshaw & Saunders, Upholders & Cabinetmakers, Soho’.
THE ORIGINAL FRENCH TAPESTRY COVERS
The 1901-3 Grimsthorpe inventory describes the original French Gobelins tapestry covers for this suite of seat-furniture. The chair backs were from a series entitled ‘Jeux d’Enfants’ after designs by Boucher, and the chair seats portrayed scenes from ‘La Fables de La Fontaine’. The Gobelins inventory of 1792 lists among its holdings of Boucher paintings, '31 petit tableaux representant des Jeux d’Enfants, tant originaux que copies'. Five of these are extant and show figures of children that often appear as tapestry chair-coverings in sets that sometimes, as in the original chair backs for the Grimsthorpe armchairs, includes ‘The Boy with the Bagpipes’ (11).
After their sale in 1934, the tapestry covers were removed from the armchairs, and applied to six modern armchairs, which were purchased by Dr. F. Mannheimer of Amsterdam, and given to the Rijksmuseum after the war where they remain today. The Grimsthorpe chairs, and by association, this settee and its pair in the Met, were evidently made to accommodate the French tapestry covers, and as such are possibly ‘among the earliest pieces in England so conceived’, and ‘emerge as a valuable document in the eighteenth-century development of Francophile taste in England’ (12). This leads to Saunders, who as the preeminent London tapestry-maker, owner of ‘The Royal Tapestry Manufactury, Soho Square’, and from September 1757, tapestry-maker to His Majesty, George II, in addition to being a cabinet-maker would have been fully conversant in the complexities of matching covers to seat-frames.
(1) Accession nos. 1971-236; 64.101.987-990.
(2) W. Rieder, ‘Eighteenth-Century Chairs in the Untermyer Collection’, Apollo, March 1978, vol. 107, p. 184.
(3) Ibid., p. 185, f/n 18.
(4) C. Hussey, ‘Grimsthorpe – III Lincolnshire: The seat of the Earl of Ancaster’, Country Life, 26 April 1924, p. 653, fig. 7.
(5) J. Gloag and Y. Hackenbroch, English Furniture in the Irwin Untermeyer Collection, Cambridge, 1958, pls. 116-117.
(6) Rieder, op. cit., p. 184.
(7) A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, p. 211, figs. 378-379.
(8) W.50-1962.
(9) S. Goodman, ‘The 9th Earl of Lincoln (1720-1794) and the refurbishment of Exchequer House, 10 Downing Street’, The British Art Journal, Winter 2017/2018, vol. XVIII, no. 3, pp. 3-7.
(10) A. Aymonino, M. Guerci, ‘The architectural transformation of Northumberland House under the 7th Duke of Somerset and the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1748-86’, Antiquaries Journal 2016, Appendix.
(11) E. Standen, ‘Tapestry panel for a fire-screen’, Decorative Art from the S.H. Kress Collection, Aylesbury, 1964, pp. 280-281.
(12) Rieder, op. cit., p. 184.