CIRCA 1730, POSSIBLY BY THOMAS HOW

Sutton Scarsdale Hall, Derbyshire, now ruinous, was built on the site of an earlier house by Francis Smith for Nicholas Leke, 4th Earl of Scarsdale (1682-1736). Lord Scarsdale employed superb craftsmen including Francesco Vassalli and Giuseppe and Adalberto Atarti. Following the Earls' death in 1736 the house and contents were sold, eventually passing to the Arkwright, of cotton-milling fame in the ninteenth-century.

Records of furniture supplied to Sutton Scarsdale are scarce but a lead plaque found at the house, bearing two dates 1724 and 1728, records the names of the architect and fifteen master tradesman responsible for building, equipping and decorating Scarsdale's fashionable new seat. Amongst those names, only Thomas How is recorded as supplying furniture (see G. Beard and C. Gilbert eds., The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1680-1840, Leeds, 1986, p. 453).

Although it is most likely that How was an upholderer, he is known to have supplied upholstered furniture to the 5th Earl of Salisbury for Hatfield House, (ibid.) there are also several survivors from a walnut suite, embelisshed with verre églomisé panels of the Scarsdale arms. These chairs are now divided between The Cooper Hewitt Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frick Collection and Temple Newsam, and are all attributed to How's workshop (see Highlights of the Untermyer Collection of English and Continental Decorative Arts, New York, 1977, p. 74 for two of the chairs). Another chair from the suite was sold anonymously; Sotheby's, New York, 24 April 2013, lot 169 ($33,750, including premium).