Lot Essay
The chairs, with reed-capped columnar legs, volute-scrolled backs and arms, and 'antique' enrichments of Roman foliage, flutes and 'tablets', are conceived in the French manner favoured by George, Prince of Wales and popularised by Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co's, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788. This pattern of chair was described at this period as 'Cabriole' in the sketch books of Messrs Gillow of London and Lancaster (L. Boynton (ed.), Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995).
A suite of armchairs and a sofa of similar pattern, at one time furnished the Blue Drawing Room at Burghley House, Stamford and is likely to have been commissioned in the mid-1780s by Brownlow, 9th Earl of Exeter (d.1793) from James Newton of Wardour Street. Its elegant style corresponded with that of the French-fashioned state bed that he delivered in 1789. The seat furniture is illustrated in situ in 1821 by Lady Sophia Cecil and published in G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', Furniture History, 1995, fig.16.
A suite of armchairs and a sofa of similar pattern, at one time furnished the Blue Drawing Room at Burghley House, Stamford and is likely to have been commissioned in the mid-1780s by Brownlow, 9th Earl of Exeter (d.1793) from James Newton of Wardour Street. Its elegant style corresponded with that of the French-fashioned state bed that he delivered in 1789. The seat furniture is illustrated in situ in 1821 by Lady Sophia Cecil and published in G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', Furniture History, 1995, fig.16.