ATTRIBUTED TO GILLOWS, CIRCA 1780

The shield-back armchairs are designed in the antique fashion promoted in the 1770s by the architect James Wyatt (d. 1813) and correspond to designs by Gillows of Lancaster and London, specifically designs for a chair and window seat en suite illustrated in L. Boynton, Gillows Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 272. They relate to a suite of seat furniture almost certainly supplied to John Harvey for the Breakfast Parlour at Ickwell Bury, Bedfordshire, in circa 1785.
The suite probably originally comprised twelve chairs and two window seats. Norman Adams sold six armchairs from the suite in 1959, and again in 1963 (S. Whittington & C. Claxton Stevens, 18th Century English Furniture: The Norman Adams Collection, London, 1998, pl. 10). Four armchairs (presumably from one of the sets of six) and two window-seats from the suite were with Norman Adams again in the mid-1980s, where they were acquired by Mr Heathcote of Badlingham Manor, Suffolk. Norman Adams subsequently reacquired them following the sale of Heathcote's collection in 1999 and they were later offered Christie’s, London, 8 June 2006, lot 131. Another pair identical to the Harvey armchairs was sold by Apter-Fredericks, Christie's, London, 19 January 2021, lot 47 (£32,500 including premium).
The 'RE' stamp found on all the components of this suite may suggest it was made by another cabinet-making firm, sub-contracted by Gillows, possibly Richard and Robert Edmunson or Edmonson. This Liverpool-based cabinet-making firm was started in 1781, with an upholstery branch added in 1788. Both Richard and Robert are recorded as freemen of Lancaster and are known to have worked for Gillows on a number of occasions. However, Gillows was not averse to reusing fashionable designs for a number of clients, and some chairs of this model may have been made for an as yet unidentified patron rather than Ickwell Bury.