The pattern for these chairs relates to designs for 'parlour chairs' featured in Robert Manwaring's Cabinet and Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion, 1765. A chair with the same splat design and similar 'wave' pattern was illustrated in M.Harris & Sons, The English Chair, London, 1946, p.132, pl. LX; it bore the stamp 'RH', possibly that of Richard Hutt, of St. Paul's Churchyard, London, who was active around 1748. Another set of eight differing slightly but bearing the same stamp, was sold privately in New York in 1993.
A related set of eight chairs with the distinctive ribbon splat was sold by Lord Savile, Rufford Abbey, Notts, Knight, Frank and Rutley, 11 October 1938, lot 106, and two of these are in The Noel Terry Collection, Fairfax House, Yorkshire.
LEOPOLD HIRSCH
The Collections of Leopold Hirsh included not only English furniture, but also antiquities, Renaissance works of art, Chinese and European porcelain, tapestries and miniatures. Many of the fine pieces of English furniture were acquired at the sale of Sir Edward J. Dean Paul's collection in 1896, including further chairs relating to the present lot. A number of pieces were illustrated in P. Macquoid and R.Edwards', The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1926, and loaned to exhibitions.