ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM AND JOHN LINNELL, CIRCA 1760

HALL FURNITURE
The form of this magnificent pair of hall benches derives from the furniture produced by William Kent (d. 1748). Wooden settees and matching hall chairs, like the present lot, were designed by Kent for entrance halls and corridors of the great Anglo-Palladian mansions, townhouses, and villas built in the 18th century. As the first furnishings encountered by any visitor, the form was intended to fit within the larger decorative scheme of the grand interiors while projecting the importance of the specific space through the use of carefully selected proportions, decoration, and quality of timber rather than through applied decoration or upholstery (S. Weber, 'Kent and the Georgian Baroque Style in Furniture', William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, New Haven & London, 2013, pp. 482-3). Kent favored using fine walnut or mahogany which was richly polished to accentuate the carving, and the severity of the form served as a foil to the opulent grandeur of the reception rooms that followed, contributing to the drama experienced by guests as they moved through the house. In this way, hall furniture was meant to be left upholstered and without cushions because anyone important would not have been kept waiting in the hall (ibid., p. 483).

THE LINNELL CONNECTION
Unlike the slightly earlier, more Baroque-spirited hall furniture from which their design derives, these chairs relate more closely to the more refined neoclassical models, which date from around 1760. Indeed, various characteristics of the present chairs, including the fluted seat frame, shaped paneled back, and curving scroll-carved arm supports, are all features of a hall settee dated circa 1760 and attributed to William and John Linnell, sold, Pelham: The Public and the Private; Sotheby's, London, 8 March 2016, lot 59 (£305,000). A further pair of hall chairs also attributed to Linnell were sold Simon Sainsbury: The Creation of an English Arcadia; Christie's, London, 18 June 2008, lot 10 (£457,250). Both of these examples were likely originally supplied to either Edwin Lascelles (d.1791) for Harewood House in Yorkshire or to David Lascelles (d.1784) for Goldsborough Hall, Yorkshire.

THE PROVENANCE
This pair of hall chairs belongs to a suite of hall furniture comprising at least two settees and four armchairs, which were possibly supplied to Nicholas Coulthurst (d.1772) for Gargrave House, Near Skipton, Yorkshire by William and John Linnell circa 1760. The suite was sold together as one lot from Gargrave House in 1982, and has since been dispersed. One of the settees from Gargrave was with Mallett, circa 2000 and is now in a private collection in the United States. A second identical settee was sold from Spains Hall, Finchingfield, Essex; Bonham's, London, 25 October 2017, lot 48 (£173,000). It is now also in a private collection in the United States, but it remains unclear whether it was original to Spains Hall or if it could have been one of the two settees from the Gargrave suite. Finally, an identical pair of chairs to the current lot is in the Main Hall at Stansted Park, Sussex (see: Lord Bessborough and C. Aslet, Enchanted Forest: The Story of Stansted in Sussex, London, 1984, p. 49). Again, it is difficult to know for certain whether the chairs were a later acquisition or if they were brought with the Bessborough family when they bought and moved to Stansted in 1924 after their principal home Bessborough House in Kilkenny, Ireland, was burned in 1920. It is indeed quite possible that the aforementioned group form a much larger suite of hall furniture.