BY GILLOWS, CIRCA 1830

The chair's richly-carved back reflects the old English style introduced around 1800 by the Wyatt architectural dynasty at George IV's Carlton House palace. The gothic-arcaded pattern, with its cusped arches, quatrefoiled rose and foliated cresting, derives primarily from one invented in 1801 by Gillows of Lancaster. The pattern demonstrates their close working relationship with the Wyatts, and was executed for the Shire Hall at Lancaster Castle. The style harmonised with the hall's architecture of Joseph Gandy (d. 1834) who had previously served as an architectural draughtsman in Sir John Soane's office, having started his architectural career with encouragement from James Wyatt (d. 1813). Gillows' design features in their Estimate Sketch Book of 11 March 1801, and was for the suite of oak chairs executed for the Hall's Grand Jury Room. It was amongst their most successful patterns, and they later reworked it for Lancaster Castle for some additional chairs supplied in 1872 (S. Stuart, 'Three Generations of Gothic Chairs by Gillows', Furniture History, 1996, figs. 6 and 11). Whereas the Lancaster chairs have reeded legs, this pair of dining or banqueting hall chairs have robust cluster-columned legs, in the fashion adopted by Gillows for furniture supplied in 1813 for Eaton Hall, Cheshire (a dressing-table featured in the Gillow Estimate Sketch Book for October 1813, Westminster City Archives).