CIRCA 1725-30

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE I WALNUT SIDE CHAIRS
CIRCA 1725-30
Each with a cartouche-shaped padded back within a moulded frame and shaped seat covered in late 16th/early 17th Brussels tapestry centered by a landscape cartouche within a plain moulded rail on cabriole legs and pad feet, the rails inscribed in red chalk E1786, each bearing an inventory disk 331 and 332 respectively, with incised marks to the seat frames and rails I and II to one and the other with IIII to both seat and rail (2)

Provenance

with Arthur S. Vernay, Inc., New York.
Mrs. Harrison Williams, New York; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 22-23 May 1952, lot 285.
with Arthur S. Vernay, Inc., New York.

Lot Essay

These drawing-room chairs are elegantly serpentined in the fashion popularised around 1730, and the upholstered backs are framed en suite with the seat-rails. Architectural-tablet backs of this form, with hollowed sides and indented corners, feature on chairs formerly in the Berkeley collections (P. Macquoid, A History of English Furniture; The Age of Mahogany, 1906, p. 40, fig 34). Similar chairs were also supplied to Edward, 3rd Lord Leigh for Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire, sold Christie's London, 19 November 1981, lots 112-114.

These chairs once formed part of the collection of Mrs. Harrison Williams, later Countess Mona Bismarck. See footnote to the previous lot regarding this legendary figure.

More from IMPORTANT ENGLISH FURNITURE

View All