CIRCA 1755

A dolphin foot was adapted for a French chair pattern in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754, pl. 20. During the reign of George II dolphins featured on the Neptune Chairman's seat provided for the East India Company's headquarters in Leadenhall Street, and on a royal throne provided by Robert Sapp in 1740 (O. Brackett, English Furniture Illustrated, London, 1930, p. 156). A celebrated suite of chairs with dolphin feet is divided between the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight (illustrated in P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. edn., London, 1954, vol. I, p.278, fig. 161), and sold from the collection of Samuel Messer, sold Christie's, London, 5 December 1991, lot 74.