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Lot Essay
These extremely rare armchairs were manufactured in China, probably Canton, to a pattern established in the European tradition and thus reflect an enduring cross-cultural relationship between China and the west which was facilitated through the activities of the East India Company in the 17th and 18th centuries (the British East India Company was established in 1600). Adam Bowett notes the first record of imported rosewood furniture was in 1726 (A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1750 – 1740, Woodbridge, 2009, p.49), and thereafter large numbers of chairs and other items made from Chinese hardwoods and exotic materials were delivered.
The repertoire of furniture types was initially quite limited, perhaps dictated by those forms that might be considered essential to East India Company officials operating in the region, including variations on the kneehole desk or dressing-table, bureaux and bureau-cabinets, seat furniture and rare games tables. They invariably follow western patterns, so for instance a great many splat-back chairs were made that correspond to a type that was almost ubiquitous in England in the early part of the 18th century, with `hoop’ back, a solid vase-shaped splat, rounded `compass’ seat and cabriole legs carved with shells or masks and with claw-and-ball or pad feet. They also saw the introduction of the bended or `India’ back, a feature adopted from Chinese classical furniture. A set of chairs of this pattern in the collection at Wilton House was made for Sir Matthew Decker, a director of the East India Company from 1713 – 43; six chairs display in their splat the Chinese shue symbol for good luck, twelve are of a plainer pattern, and they are variously stamped inside their seat rails with a crowned F for Viscount Fitzwilliam and SH for Sidney Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke (the chairs possibly part of Pembroke's inheritance from the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, Decker's grandson) (Bowett, ibid.).
The present chairs bear a close resemblance to the Wilton set. They share the same highly distinctive `double tongue-and-groove’ method of joining the chair back into the rear leg, a technique that is also seen on another pair of export rosewood chairs, one of which is in the Temple Newsam Collection, Leeds, (C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, London, 1978, vol II, no 647, pp. 491 – 492), the other formerly in the Richard Milhender Collection (C. Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade, Woodbridge, 1991, pp. 229 – 230, and colour plate 84, sold Bonhams, New York, 21 March 2022, lot 147 [$75,312 including premium]). The leg pattern is also identical to the Wilton chairs, including the carved and exquisitely shaped back legs, and it is almost certain that they were made in the same workshop.
The Wilton chairs are described as being made of huali (Bowett, ibid.), the most highly prized form of which is now known as Huanghuali (or Huang-Hua-Li), a dense timber of variable colour and with a grain that varies from straight to wild and which, it should be said, is often confused with other timber including rosewoods and padouk. Huanghuali has come to command high prices in both classical and export furniture, a group of Chinese export splat-back chairs from the estate of Robert K.Johnson was sold at Nye Auctions, NJ, 20 – 21 January 2021 lots 458 (an armchair, $116,850 including premium), 459 (a pair of side chairs, $159,900) and 460 (a pair of side chairs, $221,400). These appear to be of identical pattern to huali chairs in the Leverhulme Collection (L.Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, New Haven & London, 2008, vol I, no. 36, pp. 429 - 440). It has been suggested that chairs intended for export were shipped disassembled, and there are records of others having caned seats (Bowett, ibid.) but upholstered seats must almost certainly have been fitted in England.
The chairs offered here differ to all the above and apparently to all other known examples in being of low library chair form. While it’s established that furniture manufactured in the east for the use of western visitors, or for export, follows western prototypes, chairs of this exact form are not otherwise known. They do however conform, and the London cabinet and chair-maker John Hodson (d.1786), of Frith St, Soho, illustrated a related chair with an arched padded back, on his billhead in 1733 (Sir. A. Heal, The London Furniture Makers, London, 1953, p. 80). Hodson’s firm counted amongst their clients the Earl of Radnor, Lord Monson and the Earl of Atholl. Hodson's bill sent to Coll. Kennedy for items supplied to Dalquharran, 1735 – 36, detailed chairs with `seats Stuft and covered with black Leather’ and another to William Clayton in 1744 refers to ‘Chairs Stuft and covered with black Spanish leather studed with brass nails’ (C.Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660 – 1840, Leeds, 1986, p.439). Many other bills and inventories refer to leather upholstery including at Erddig (1726), Kiveton (1727) and Holkham (1738) (Wood, ibid. pp. 70 - 71), giving a clear indication of how the present chairs might originally have been upholstered.
The repertoire of furniture types was initially quite limited, perhaps dictated by those forms that might be considered essential to East India Company officials operating in the region, including variations on the kneehole desk or dressing-table, bureaux and bureau-cabinets, seat furniture and rare games tables. They invariably follow western patterns, so for instance a great many splat-back chairs were made that correspond to a type that was almost ubiquitous in England in the early part of the 18th century, with `hoop’ back, a solid vase-shaped splat, rounded `compass’ seat and cabriole legs carved with shells or masks and with claw-and-ball or pad feet. They also saw the introduction of the bended or `India’ back, a feature adopted from Chinese classical furniture. A set of chairs of this pattern in the collection at Wilton House was made for Sir Matthew Decker, a director of the East India Company from 1713 – 43; six chairs display in their splat the Chinese shue symbol for good luck, twelve are of a plainer pattern, and they are variously stamped inside their seat rails with a crowned F for Viscount Fitzwilliam and SH for Sidney Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke (the chairs possibly part of Pembroke's inheritance from the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, Decker's grandson) (Bowett, ibid.).
The present chairs bear a close resemblance to the Wilton set. They share the same highly distinctive `double tongue-and-groove’ method of joining the chair back into the rear leg, a technique that is also seen on another pair of export rosewood chairs, one of which is in the Temple Newsam Collection, Leeds, (C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, London, 1978, vol II, no 647, pp. 491 – 492), the other formerly in the Richard Milhender Collection (C. Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade, Woodbridge, 1991, pp. 229 – 230, and colour plate 84, sold Bonhams, New York, 21 March 2022, lot 147 [$75,312 including premium]). The leg pattern is also identical to the Wilton chairs, including the carved and exquisitely shaped back legs, and it is almost certain that they were made in the same workshop.
The Wilton chairs are described as being made of huali (Bowett, ibid.), the most highly prized form of which is now known as Huanghuali (or Huang-Hua-Li), a dense timber of variable colour and with a grain that varies from straight to wild and which, it should be said, is often confused with other timber including rosewoods and padouk. Huanghuali has come to command high prices in both classical and export furniture, a group of Chinese export splat-back chairs from the estate of Robert K.Johnson was sold at Nye Auctions, NJ, 20 – 21 January 2021 lots 458 (an armchair, $116,850 including premium), 459 (a pair of side chairs, $159,900) and 460 (a pair of side chairs, $221,400). These appear to be of identical pattern to huali chairs in the Leverhulme Collection (L.Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, New Haven & London, 2008, vol I, no. 36, pp. 429 - 440). It has been suggested that chairs intended for export were shipped disassembled, and there are records of others having caned seats (Bowett, ibid.) but upholstered seats must almost certainly have been fitted in England.
The chairs offered here differ to all the above and apparently to all other known examples in being of low library chair form. While it’s established that furniture manufactured in the east for the use of western visitors, or for export, follows western prototypes, chairs of this exact form are not otherwise known. They do however conform, and the London cabinet and chair-maker John Hodson (d.1786), of Frith St, Soho, illustrated a related chair with an arched padded back, on his billhead in 1733 (Sir. A. Heal, The London Furniture Makers, London, 1953, p. 80). Hodson’s firm counted amongst their clients the Earl of Radnor, Lord Monson and the Earl of Atholl. Hodson's bill sent to Coll. Kennedy for items supplied to Dalquharran, 1735 – 36, detailed chairs with `seats Stuft and covered with black Leather’ and another to William Clayton in 1744 refers to ‘Chairs Stuft and covered with black Spanish leather studed with brass nails’ (C.Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660 – 1840, Leeds, 1986, p.439). Many other bills and inventories refer to leather upholstery including at Erddig (1726), Kiveton (1727) and Holkham (1738) (Wood, ibid. pp. 70 - 71), giving a clear indication of how the present chairs might originally have been upholstered.