Lot Essay
This squab-cushioned stool was commissioned by King George IV as part of his aggrandisement of Windsor Castle in the mid-1820s in a manner worthy of the ancient British monarchy. Much of it was decorated in a romantic medieval style appropriate to its ancient and chivalric history. The stool formed part of a suite of wall-banquettes and window-seats, enriched with self-consciously ancient brown oak. The suite furnished the Tudor-panelled New Corridor that served as a long picture gallery and which was designed by the King's architect Sir Jeffry Wyattville (d.1840).
The furnishing contract as 'Upholsterer in Ordinary to the King' had been granted in 1826 to Nicholas Morel, who went into partnership with George Seddon of Aldersgate Street, and took into his employ the highly talented fifteen year-old Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (d.1852). The latter is recorded at Windsor in June 1827 designing and making 'working drawings for the gothic furniture'. The long banquettes were listed in their Estimates memo as '14 banquets [later reduced to twelve] of oak, ornamented Gothic frames, stuffed tops, covered with English Tapestry in suit with Curtains'. The stools costing £25 each, exclusive of their seats, comprised:
'28 window seats of oak, ornamented to correspond with the banquets, stuffed and covered in suit'.
They were delivered from the 4 October 1827 onwards. On 28 February 1828, twenty-six seats for stools are listed as being supplied at £3.1.6. each, which would have included their 'Tapestry' upholstery. This stool and several of those remaining at Windsor retain their original upholstery with a central lace rosette on red repp. This includes the stool illustrated in de Bellaigue and Kirkham, loc. cit. and that exhibited in Essen, loc. cit.. This upholstery was itself en suite with the window curtains for which Morel and Seddon estimated: '44 pair of window curtains and door curtains of English Tapestry; of scarlet ground with white and grey border, looped up with bands in suit' (de Bellaigue and Kirkham, op. cit., p. 16).
The stool frame is conceived in Morel and Pugin's 'Florid Gothic' style, with its frieze sunk with cusp-arched tablets and flowered with Tudor roses in quatrefoiled corner tablets, while the arch-pilastered legs are buttressed in pointed arches with fruit and foliage-enriched brackets.
A second stool from the set is at Temple Newsam House (Gilbert, loc. cit.) whilst a third was sold by the late Lady Anne Salmon, Phillips London, 12 February 1991, lot 146. A further stool, with later decoration, was sold anonymously at Christie's New York, 17 October 1987, lot 56.
The brand mark refers to the Windsor Castle inventory undertaken by Holland and Sons in 1866, giving the same room location as the stool sold in New York.
The furnishing contract as 'Upholsterer in Ordinary to the King' had been granted in 1826 to Nicholas Morel, who went into partnership with George Seddon of Aldersgate Street, and took into his employ the highly talented fifteen year-old Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (d.1852). The latter is recorded at Windsor in June 1827 designing and making 'working drawings for the gothic furniture'. The long banquettes were listed in their Estimates memo as '14 banquets [later reduced to twelve] of oak, ornamented Gothic frames, stuffed tops, covered with English Tapestry in suit with Curtains'. The stools costing £25 each, exclusive of their seats, comprised:
'28 window seats of oak, ornamented to correspond with the banquets, stuffed and covered in suit'.
They were delivered from the 4 October 1827 onwards. On 28 February 1828, twenty-six seats for stools are listed as being supplied at £3.1.6. each, which would have included their 'Tapestry' upholstery. This stool and several of those remaining at Windsor retain their original upholstery with a central lace rosette on red repp. This includes the stool illustrated in de Bellaigue and Kirkham, loc. cit. and that exhibited in Essen, loc. cit.. This upholstery was itself en suite with the window curtains for which Morel and Seddon estimated: '44 pair of window curtains and door curtains of English Tapestry; of scarlet ground with white and grey border, looped up with bands in suit' (de Bellaigue and Kirkham, op. cit., p. 16).
The stool frame is conceived in Morel and Pugin's 'Florid Gothic' style, with its frieze sunk with cusp-arched tablets and flowered with Tudor roses in quatrefoiled corner tablets, while the arch-pilastered legs are buttressed in pointed arches with fruit and foliage-enriched brackets.
A second stool from the set is at Temple Newsam House (Gilbert, loc. cit.) whilst a third was sold by the late Lady Anne Salmon, Phillips London, 12 February 1991, lot 146. A further stool, with later decoration, was sold anonymously at Christie's New York, 17 October 1987, lot 56.
The brand mark refers to the Windsor Castle inventory undertaken by Holland and Sons in 1866, giving the same room location as the stool sold in New York.