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Lot Essay
This pair of parcel-gilt and bronzed armchairs is attributed to the celebrated cabinet-making partnership of Nicholas Morel and Robert Hughes. They relate closely to a large suite of furniture commissioned by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858) for the saloon at Devonshire House, London, and supplied by Morel and Hughes in 1815. The suite appear in a watercolour of the Saloon painted by William Hunt (1790-1864) in 1822 and are now in the library at Chatsworth, Derbyshire. Four related 'very handsome bergere chairs' also with Vitruvian scrolls on the seat rails were commissioned by Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765-1837) for Longleat, Wiltshire, and supplied by Morel and Hughes in 1813. It is the similarity of the present chairs to the Devonshire and Longleat suites which forms the basis of their attribution to Nicholas Morel.
The present chairs differ from the Devonshire suite only in their griffin monopodia supports, which relate more closely to the work of Thomas Hope (1769-1831). As conceived by Hope, the chair combines Greek and Roman elements and appear as consular thrones. A comparable chair, with its scrolled back, griffin monopodia and Vitruvian scrolls was executed around 1800 for Hope's Duchess Street mansion and illustrated in his Household Furniture and Decoration, 1807, pl. LIX, no. 2. The monopodia are intended to recall the chimerical griffin, considered by poets as sacred to Apollo, the leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration on Mount Parnassus. It therefore seems appropriate that the Devonshire suite was surrounded by furniture by William Kent (c. 1685-1748), whose designs, though almost a century earlier, were as intended to classical tradition as the present chairs.
The present chairs differ from the Devonshire suite only in their griffin monopodia supports, which relate more closely to the work of Thomas Hope (1769-1831). As conceived by Hope, the chair combines Greek and Roman elements and appear as consular thrones. A comparable chair, with its scrolled back, griffin monopodia and Vitruvian scrolls was executed around 1800 for Hope's Duchess Street mansion and illustrated in his Household Furniture and Decoration, 1807, pl. LIX, no. 2. The monopodia are intended to recall the chimerical griffin, considered by poets as sacred to Apollo, the leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration on Mount Parnassus. It therefore seems appropriate that the Devonshire suite was surrounded by furniture by William Kent (c. 1685-1748), whose designs, though almost a century earlier, were as intended to classical tradition as the present chairs.