POSSIBLY BY THOMAS CHIPPENDALE

Details

AN EARLY GEORGE III MAHOGANY OPEN ARMCHAIR
Possibly by Thomas Chippendale
The arched rectangular padded back, scrolled arms and seat covered in close-nailed red floral silk-damask, the outscrolled arms with husks and stylised channelled scrolls with acanthus and guilloche stop-fluted supports with ogee base, the channelled waved seat-rail centred by an acanthus and C-scroll spray with central trefoil flanked by acanthus C-scrolls, on acanthus C-scroll headed channelled cabriole legs with bold scroll feet and brass castors, the side-rails with corresponding channels overlaying the splayed black feet, with Norman Adams label

Provenance

Bought from Norman Adams, September 1966.

Literature

C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, rev. ed., 1985, p. 42.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

This elegantly serpentined chair is designed in the 'picturesque' manner popularised by Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1754. Two indicators suggest that this chair may in fact have been made by Chippendale himself. The first is that its particular rail-pattern, with hollowed and reed-banded frame enriched with foliated cartouches at centre and corners, as well as its scroll feet, derived exceptionally closely from a pattern for chair in the third edition of the Director, 1762, pl. XXIII.
The second indicator is the existence of the same pattern of reed-enriched arms on a suite of Drawing Room chairs commissioned by the 5th Earl of Dumfries for Dumfries House, Scotland, and invoiced by Chippendale in 1759 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, pp, 130-139 and vol. II, p. 86, pl. 139). A set of chairs sold at Sotheby's New York, 21 October 2002, lot 197, has the same arm as these chairs and the same shape of back as the present chair.

More from 50 YEARS OF COLLECTING:DECORATIVE ARTS OF GEORGIAN ENGLAND

View All