A PAIR OF REGENCY BAMBOO ARMCHAIRS

While Canton manufacturers had long exhibited wares at the principal 19th Century International Exhibitions, it was only as a result of the 'Japanese Court' at London's 1862 Exhibition that the Japonaiserie style flourished. Over 150 bamboo manufacturers were recorded in England between 1870 and 1940, all providing 'light, sturdy and elegant bamboo furniture often enhanced with lacquer panels' and department stores such as Liberty & Co. and Debenham & Freebody illustrated wares of this type in trade catalogues.

Details

A PAIR OF REGENCY BAMBOO ARMCHAIRS

The openwork design of the back with geometric Chinese pailing, the shaped sides with branches and scrolls above a caned seat with moulded border and scrolled fret-filled panelled pierced apron, on tripartite legs with box-stretchers, one turned bone roundel on one of the uprights missing, minor losses to branches, one stretcher distressed (2)

Lot Essay

These chair-frames derive from Chinese export productions and relate to that illustrated by the architect William Chambers in his Designs of Chinese Buildings, 1757, pl. XIII. Their fan-pattern tablets relate closely to the pattern published in the 1790s by A. Hepplewhite & Co. and Thomas Sheraton. A set of three chairs of this pattern, likely to have been acquired by Luke Dillon, 2nd Lord Clonbrock, were sold at Christie's house sale at Clonbrock, Ireland, 1 November 1967, lot 122. Another closely related pair from the collection of the family of Joseph Smith (d. 1845) of Philadelphia, is illustrated J. G. Lee, Philadelphians and the China Trade, Pennsylvania, 1984, fig. 138. The fan-tablet back also features on related chairs acquired for the Marine Pavilion, Brighton, by George, Prince of Wales, later George IV (G. Walkling, Antique Bamboo Furniture, London, 1979, fig. 16 and C. Musgrave, Regency Furniture, London, 1961, fig. 24A)

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