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.
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Pre-Lot Text
Lot 344 and 345 PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE SIR FREDERICK RICHMOND BT, WHOSE IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF NEEDLEWORK IS TO BE SOLD AT CHRISTIE'S ON THE 14TH OF JUNE 2001.
These two Windsor chairs are finely made with stylish cabriole legs to the front and an elegance to the back and arms created by the dynamic use of slender turned and bent sections. Although typical in overall design of chairs of this type, made from the middle to the end of the 18th century, they are rare in having carved foliate designs to the splats and in the use of mahogany for the seats. Clearly the carving embellishment and the use of an exotic wood for the seat mark out these chairs as intending to be superior forms. Two other chairs of this type are known. One forms part of the Frederick Parker Collection and is published in Ivan Sparkes, The Windsor Chair, Spur Books, 1975, p.53, and has turned cross stretchers between the legs which are replacements for the original crinoline stretcher. The second, closely similar, but having an original stretcher, is owned by coincidence, by a relation of the Parker family. Both were the subject of the Frederick Parker Annual Lecture given by Dr B D Cotton on October 26th 2000 at the Linnean Society, London.
An example of a chair of this design but with a plain, pierced splat, provenanced to its maker William Webb of Stoke Newington, Surrey (fl.1792-1808), is illustrated in Dr B Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge, 1990, p.46, fig.tv18.