A SET OF EIGHT MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS

These chairs are modelled on a design for ‘Parlour Chairs’, published in the Robert Manwaring’s The Chair-Maker’s Guide in 1765, plate 36. Manwaring’s pattern book was issued in London but, from at least 1767, copies were available in North America as borne out by an advertisement on the front page of the Boston News-Letter dated 8 January 1767 (D. Maudlin, R. Peel, The Materials of Exchange between Britain and North East America, 1750-1900, pp. 152-153). Thus, direct copies and variants of Manwaring’s designs are found in American collections including closely related chairs to this model (see J.T. Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition to 1830, New York, 1982, p. 266, fig. 932; M-A Rogers, M.H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. 2, p. 74, fig. 33). At least three sets of this model chair are recorded in the British Isles: the first, from which the present George III chairs possibly originate, a set of eight chairs, was in the Tollemache collection at Peckforton Castle, Cheshire, the second, a set of ten chairs, was formerly owned by Colonel Barham at Hole Park, Cranbrook, Kent (sold ‘The Legend of Dick Turpin, Part I’, Christie’s, London, 9 March 2006, lot 165) and four chairs, in the Noel Terry collection (The Noel Terry Collection of Furniture and Clocks, York, 1987, p. 56, no. 56).