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1. PAIR OF CHAIRS
c. 1735
England, London. Walnut, modern velvet upholstery.
H: 101.5 W: 84 D: 67.5 cm
Provenance:
Part of the suite of six armchairs and fifteen side chairs supplied to either Sir Philip Astley (1667-1739), 2 nd Bt. or Sir Jacob Astley (1691-1760), 3rd Bt. for Melton Constable Hall, Norfolk
By descent at Melton Constable with the Astley baronets and later the Barons Hastings until 1948, when the chairs were acquired with the house
Sold Christie’s, London, 23 April 1998, lot 30, GBP 194,000
The William F. Reilly Collection, New York, USA
Sold Christie’s, New York, 14 October 2009, lot 115, estimate: USD 250,000 - 400,000
Private Collection, California, USA
The suite of chairs supplied to Melton Constable Hall, Norfolk is one of the great suites of walnut seat furniture produced in the eighteenth century. 1
Replete with antique ornament and carved with the heraldic device, the chairs underscore the ancient lineage of the Astley family. The recognised founder of the family fortunes, Sir Thomas de Astley (1215-65) of Astley Castle and Hillmorton, Warwickshire, summoned to Parliament as Baron Astley in 1253, was killed at the battle of Evesham in 1265. He acquired the estate of Melton Constable by his second marriage in 1236 to Editha, daughter and heiress of Peter Constable of Melton Constable.
Though the possession of the Astleys since the early thirteenth century, the present manor of Melton Constable was built from 1664 by Sir Jacob Astley (16401729), 1st Bt. His Carolean house – for he likely acted as his own architect – is one of the most important
of its date in the country, part of the small group of fine mid-late seventeenth-century houses comprising Coleshill, Kingston Lacy, Clarendon, Stoke Edith and Belton that exemplifies this distinctively English style, a legacy of Inigo Jones and developed by Roger Pratt, called the only truly English vernacular style of architecture to have developed since the Tudor period. 2
The present chairs were made for the Eating Room, now the Red Drawing Room, of the present Melton Constable Hall. The spectacular plaster ceiling, dated 1687, bears the quartered arms of the family’s founder, Sir Thomas, placed by the first baronet in the pediment of the south front, as well as the same baronet’s cypher and singular crest of five feathers rising from a ducal coronet which, some fifty years later, was repeated on the knees of the present chairs, as it was again in the pediment of the connecting Gallery, built by the fifth baronet in 1810. The ceiling also features panels of boldly modelled game-birds, partridges and pheasants, flowers, bunches of grapes and other fruit, reflecting the original function of the room. 3
The chairs were likely made for another Jacob, later the third baronet, who in his father’s old age probably oversaw the refurbishments of the 1730s when these chairs were made. He was a keen musician. Sir Jacob is depicted playing the cello in a group portrait of 1734 by Heins of Norwich which may capture the original interior of the Chapel, which he converted into the Saloon. In 1721 he married Lucy, the sister and coheiress of Sir Henry le Strange of Hunstanton, which brought to the Astleys the claim to the ancient barony of Hastings, subsequently revived in their favour, and which had, in fact, been created in 1264 by writ from
Fig. 1: Detail showing the Astley crest of five ostrich feathers issued from a ducal coronet on the knee, flanked by acanthus
Sir Simon de Montfort, the man with whom the family founder Sir Thomas sided at Evesham in 1265.
Jacob’s namesake was his ancestor the first Sir Jacob Astley (1579-1653), later 1st Baron Astley of Reading, the famous cavalier; but before him the family achieved prominence at the Tudor court as relations of the Boleyns and favourites of Elizabeth I. Jacob the builder met Charles II on his landing in 1660 and marched into London as his Royal Standard Bearer. He began the family Commons tradition which lasted until the fifth baronet who inherited the Seaton Delaval estate and the great Vanbrugh house with it, where the family lived on as the Barons Hastings.
The chairs reflect the grandeur of the English classical tradition. Roman acanthus leaves flank each ducal coronet, the splats take the shape of classical vases, and the legs terminate in hairy lion’s paws, celebrating the great Bacchus, Roman god of wine and revelry, who was often depicted riding wild cats in reliefs and other iconography. A stylistic tour de force , these chairs encapsulate not only the history of the Astley family, but to a significant degree that of England itself.
1 Recorded in the inventories of 1799, 1860 and 1901, see Harding, G. and H., Catalogue of the Ornamental Furniture, Works of Art, and Porcelain, at Melton Constable Hall (London, 1901), p. 8
2 N. Kingsley, Landed families of Britain and Ireland, ‘Astley of Melton Constable’ (18 June 2016)
3 ‘Melton Constable, Norfolk’, Country Life (16 September 1905), pp. 378-84; C. Hussey, ‘Melton Constable, Norfolk – I & II’, Country Lif e (15 & 22 September 1928), pp. 764–70; pp. 402-9
Fig. 3: One of the armchairs from the suite illustrated in C. Hussey, ‘Needlework Furniture at Melton Constable’, Country Life, 6 October 1928, p. 480, fig. 6
Fig. 2: One chair in profile, showing the paw feet and back legs
2. BUREAU-BOOKCASE
c. 1720
England, London.
Scarlet and gilt-japanned wood, glass, brass.
H: 240.7 W: 104.1 D: 62.2 cm
Provenance:
Private Collection: London, UK
Private Collection: West Coast, USA
The courts and nobility of Europe had long been fascinated by the exoticism and mystery of the Orient by the time the present bookcase was made in c. 1720.
The huge growth in trade through the East India Company in the seventeenth century brought silks, lacquer wares, tea and porcelain to England, preciptating a huge desire amongst the wealthy for a taste of these extraordinary goods, which cabinets such as the present example, magnificently ‘japanned’ in imitation of Chinese lacquer, provided in some style.
This example captures the characteristically fantastical, pastoral vision of life in the East, with golden, robed figures moving amongst birds and luscious flowers and grand pagaodas resting beside waterways beneath trees.
This cabinet is a model that had only been recently introduced at this time, superseding scriptors or escritoires.1 Inventories from the period reveal that such desks-and-bookcases as these were placed in bedchambers, dressing rooms and closets, to be used for storage of clothes, writing and dressing, the doors serving as looking glasses.
This example is the classic form, most sought after by collectors. The cornice is of double-domes, which were more labour-intensive and costly than a flat top.
The cabinet doors open to reveal a fitted interior of drawers, shelves and a central cupboard, above candle slides and the bureau fitted with further drawers, pigeon holes, marbled pilasters enclosing secret compartments and an eighteenth-century blue silk writing surface. Such cabinet interiors, with their many compartments and shelves, afforded contemporaries ample opportunity to display their complemetary collections of imported blue and white porcelain.
An extremely similar double-domed scarlet and gilt example with comparable decoration and almost identical interior arrangements, though arguably less acomplished, detailed and well-proportioned than the present cabinet, was supplied c. 1720 to John Meller at Erddig Hall, Wales.2 The cabinet remains at Erddig and is attributed to John Belchier, who supplied a series of important articles to Meller between 1722 and 1726, and remains a possible author of the present cabinet. Indeed, its quality certainly suggests the hand of a leading London firm.
1 A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 From Charles II to Queen Anne (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 220
2 A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009), p. 61, pl. 2:16
c. 1725
England, London.
Carved and gilded gesso on wood, bole.
H: 70 W: 77.5 D: 45.5 cm
Provenance:
Supplied to Samuel Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys (1695-1770) for Ombersley Court, Worcestershire, England
By descent with the Barons Sandys at Ombersley
The gilt-gesso furniture produced in the first decades of the 1700s was some of the most opulent of the century, made to occupy prime positions in magnificent rooms of parade and state and to enrich the sumptuous private apartments of royalty and nobility. The present table, jewel-like in its smaller scale, was made for a private room of Ombersley Court, the Dressing Room, adjacent to the Velvet Bedchamber, where it was possibly recorded in its pier between the windows in the 1755 inventory of the house (Fig.1).1
The quality of the table suggests the authorship of a leading maker. It bears close resemblance to another of c. 1720 - 26 at John Belchier’s most significant known commission, Erddig Hall, carved very similarly on the frieze with shells and acanthus leaves, and the possible connection is strengthened by the survival at Ombersley of a group of gesso mirrors that compares with the documented pier glasses supplied by him to Erddig in 1723 and 1726, the period when Ombersley was built and furnished.2
The nature of the flower-carvings on the earpieces of the present table, however, evokes the work of James Moore, perhaps the most renowned maker of furniture of this type, raising the possibility of his authorship. Indeed, Belchier’s bill for the gesso table at Erddig does not survive and so perhaps it was made by one of the other makers John Meller employed, namely John Pardoe and John Gumley, the latter of whom was Moore’s partner.
The table was made for Samuel Sandys, later Baron, a man so much the enemy of Sir Robert Walpole that on his retirement in 1742 the Frist Minister chose the name Orford for his title, ‘as an act of homage to one whose presence had cast a considerable shadow over the great prime minister’s political apprenticeship’. 2 Horace Walpole noted: ‘Sandys is very angry at his taking the title of Orford, which belonged to his wife’s great-uncle. You know a step of that nature cost the great Lord Strafford his head, at the prosecution of a less bloody-minded man than Sandys’. 3
Certainly, Sandys’ conduct over the course of his career earned him mixed reviews from contemporaries. He was probably the ‘person’ described by Lord Chesterfield as ‘without any merit but the lowest species of prostitution, enjoying a considerable post, got by betraying his own party’ and was famously identified by William Shippen as one of ‘those men with long cravats’ who ‘only desire places’. 4 Following Walpole’s fall, he was made Chancellor by Pulteney, but ‘not equal to it, as is the general voice’, wrote Lord Egmont, he retired only 22 months later, although not before he had, wrote the new first lord Henry Pelham, ‘insisted on being a peer and cofferer’. 4
Sandys was perhaps more popular in his seat of Worcester. Trusted and respected he received warm entreaties for help from the Clothiers’ Company. And a Worcester newspaper of 25th July 1733 suggests that he was loved locally: ‘Sam Sandys Esquire, one of our representatives, was met about two miles out of town by several hundreds of the principal inhabitants…from thence attended through the city with music, drums, streamers, and loud acclamations of joy’. 5
With the Commons in session for less than six months in the year, there was plenty of time for other activities. Sandys was attentive to his estate, with surviving notes, even those about mundane matters, written in his own hand. As Martin Davis comments, ‘Samuel may have had something in common with the hated Walpole…who was said to open the Bailiff’s letters about the affairs of his estate before opening those dealing with affairs of state.’ 6
The table is made in the late baroque style, featuring French arabesque work boldly modelled in bas-relief, reflecting the ambition of its owner in richness, as did his Palladian house which he built with his wife’s £170,000 fortune. The cabriole legs were a new form at this time, a development of the pillar-leg popular during the reigns of William III and Queen Anne. 7
1 Ombersley Inventory, 1755-75, in ‘The Drefsing Room’, ‘a gilt table between the windows, carved’
2 See National Trust, reference no. 1146957
3 D. W. Hayton, The History of Parliament (2002)
4 Martin Davis, Samuel 1 st Baron Sandys of Ombersley, 1695–1770: Fragments of Nine Lives , No. 1, (2017), p. 13
5 Letters and Works of the Earl of Chesterfield , 1845–53, v. 233–4, see G. F. R. Barker, ‘Sandys, Samuel’, in Lee, Sidney (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 50. (Ldn., 1897)
6 Davis (2017), p. 14; Sedgwick, Romney R., ‘SANDYS, Samuel (1695-1770), of Ombersley, Worcs.’, in Sedgwick, R. (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1715-1754 (1970)
7 A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009), p. 210-3
Fig. 1: The 1755 inventory of Ombersley by Richard Callowhill, where the present table is possibly recorded. Interestingly, when the document was heavily amended by Samuel’s daughter-in-law, Anna Maria, who dated her corrections 1st July 1775, the entry in respect of the ‘gilt table’ was left untouched, suggest-
ing the table had remained in its position between the windows in the Dressing Room between 1755 and 1775, the period during which, coming after the end of his political career, Sandys spent most time at Ombersley.
4. CANDLESTICKS
c. 1765 England, London. Mahogany, brass.
H: 34.9 D: 14.6 cm
Provenance:
Private Collection: West Sussex, UK
Private Collection: West Coast, USA
Of typical form, this pair is unusually fine quality. The transitional design is expressed by the combination of foliate candle sockets and fluted columnar stems.
SECRETAIRE-CABINET
c. 1725
By William Old & John Ody. England, London. Walnut on
textile.
H: 228.6 W: 109.9 D: 52.1 cm
Provenance:
Private Collection: New York, USA
Private Collection: West Coast, USA
It is particularly special to offer a piece of labelled furniture. A maker’s mark - in this instance that of Old & Ody - supplies the rare knowledge of the first origins of a piece and, more broadly, insight into the wider furniture trade in eighteenth-century England. It is particularly exciting for the academic and enthusiast.
The cabinet is architectural in conception, featuring a cavetto-moulded arched cornice of the type that surmounted the doors and windows of newly-fashionable Neo-Palladian buildings. It also centres a pedestal for a finial. The mirrored doors are similarly arched. The original plates are bevelled and engraved with a star and retained within a crossgrain ovolo moulding, above a wide candle slide and a substantial waist moulding of cyma recta profile.
The classical form and porportions of the cabinet are completed by a square chest of four long drawers above a cyma recta base moulding and bun feet.
The drawers are faced in magnificent tightly-figured burr veneers which are feather- and cross-banded in a panelled or eight short drawers design. They are contained within double bead carcase mouldings and mounted with shaped brasses.
deal and oak, brass, glass,
The mirrored doors open to reveal a fitted interior of burry drawers and hinged compartments similarly banded and within double half-round mouldings, mounted with shilling-plate ring handles. The view of the reverse of the left hand door shows the substantial lock bolt. The secretaire drawer contains an arrangement of drawers and pigeon holes, below an elegantly shaped valance, and a green silk-lined writing surface.
In a drawer of the chest is the paper trade label of William Old and John Ody, reading ‘WILLIAM OLD AND JOHN ODY At the Castle in St Paul’s Church-Yard over-against the South-Gate of ye Church London Makes and Sells all sorts of Cane & Dutch Chairs, Chair Frames for Stuffing and Cane Lashes. And also all sorts of the best Looking-Glass & Cabinet-Work in Japan Walnut-Tree & Wainscot, at reasonable Rates.’
The combination of chair and cabinet-making was a common one in the early eighteenth-century, and the result in this case of William Old bringing his skills as a turner and John Ody bringing his as a joiner. The partnership was cemented, as so many were in this period, by Ody’s marriage to Old’s daugher Mary in 1717, marking the expansion of the business which now offered both veneered case furniture and chairs. 1
Furniture that survives with Old & Ody’s paper label is very rare and in addition to the present cabinet only five other pieces are known. Of this five, four are other pieces of high-quality case furniture, with two secretaire-cabinets like the present entry and one bureau-bookcase. These and a bachelor’s chest, as well as the firm’s label itself, identical to the example here, have been documented. 2 The fifth labeled article
is a pair of chairs, now in the Museum of the Home, London (14/2006). 3
The label itself is worthy of analysis. Beyond an aedicula with fluted Corinthian columns is a rusticated castle with crenellations and arrowslits. With a baroque quality, almost Vanbrugh-esque, the image conveys a sense of the grandeur and reputation of the firm at the time, and the manner in which they wished to present themselves as an important, prestigious concern.
1 Lindey, ‘William Old and John Ody ‘At the Castle in St Paul’s Church-Yard’’, FHS Newsletter (Feb. 2006)
2 C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked Furniture 1700-1840 (Leeds, 1996), pp. 358-60, figs. 699-703
3 A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009), p.160, pl. 4:30
Fig. 1: The paper trade label of William Old and John Ody survives on a drawbottom of this cabinet
MIRROR
c. 1665 - 85 England.
Carved and silvered wood, glass.
H: 163.8 W: 106.7 cm
Provenance:
The Collection of Standish Robert Gage Prendergast Vereker, 7 th Viscount Gort, MC, KStJ (1888-1975) at Hamsterley Hall, County Durham, England
By descent to the Hon. Catherine Mary Wass, OBE (1942-2021)
In its construction the present mirror is typical of its type, featuring a layered fabric with the border carving built up on a flat base frame and the seperate cresting fixed to the same. This produces the striking effect of heavily peirced and undercut carving and a highly visible ground, which often was decorated in a contrasting colour for added depth and vibrance.1
Mirrors of this quality, colour and monumental scale, however, are exceedingly scarce. One of the very few comparable examples is the mirror bearing the arms of Gough of Old Fallings Hall, Staffordshire, for Sir Henry Gough (1649-1724) in the Victoria & Albert Museum.2 Another related mirror, incorporating the arms of Fisher of Packington, Warwickshire, is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool.
The silvering would have given the mirror the appearance of solid silver, reflecting the richness of Restoration style and associating the present mirror with important contemporary mirrors executed in the metal at Knole, Kent and in the Royal Collection, each supplied with a table and stands en suite to form a triad.3
Carved with putti - one of the most popular motifs for carved mirrors during this period, enjoying a long fashionable life - the mirror derives from French baroque designs of the second half of the seventeenth century, exemplified by the below Parisian engraving of c. 1670.4
The mirror is evidence therefore of the French taste of Charles II and his refurbishments of his Royal Palaces, and the ‘rampant Francophalia’ these engendered amongst his innermost circle of courtiers, who in turn expressed this most lavishly at their country houses.5 In their English context, however, these motifs were perhaps uniquely symbolic.
In the 1660s, as society salved the scars of Protectorate privations, England underwent serious economic recession. The nation’s fortunes reached their nadir when London endured the Great Plague (1665), the Great Fire (1666) and a second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-67). With ‘public matters in a most sad condition’ and ‘all sober men…fearful of the ruin of the whole Kingdom’, on New Year’s Eve in 1666 Samuel Pepys saw no prospect of improvement, beseeching ‘good God deliver us’.6
By the end of the decade, however, conditions had begun to improve, developing into economic boom lasting into the 1690s. England’s woollen cloth manufacturers rose to successfully challenge cheaper competition abroad and the English ‘New Draperies’ found new markets both at home and overseas particularly in the Mediterranean and the Levant. But most of all, the re-export trade, which saw the goods flooding into London from Asia, Africa and the Americas sent on to all parts of Europe and the Mediterranean, boomed to become the nation’s big business.7
This mirror represents this rejuvenation and prosperity of Restoration England. Berries, branches, flowers and a cornucopia symbolise growth and plenty, while ribbons, swags and putti playing instruments capture the mood and sounds of celebration. The mirror itself is a product of this increasing wealth and a marker of the accelerating pace of concomitant technological advancement, with plate of this size not being just expensive to produce, but highly difficult and previously impossible.!
The mirror was in the collection of connoisseur Standish Robert Gage Prendergast Vereker, 7th Viscount Gort, that also included the cabinet-on-stand attributed to
Fig. 1: Parisian engraving of c. 1670 entitled Live de Miroirs, Tables et Guéridons, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Accession No. 33.84.1-4)
André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (77.DA.1).8
Standish Vereker housed his collections at Hamsterley Hall, built largely in c. 1770 by Henry Swinburne in eighteenth-century gothic style, with a crenelated roof line, ogival windows and a fanciful bay. Standish stamped his
mark on the place, adding salvaged Jacobean elements from Beaudeser (recently demolished in 1935 and including a cupola to serve as a summer house), an early eighteenth-century baroque doorcase and shell canopy and a Gothic pinnacle, removed from the earlier Houses of Parliament during restoration works.9
The mirror was a fitting part of his collection. A celebration of Restoration England - even carved with a
sunflower, the symbol of monarchical loyalty famously deployed by Van Dyck - the mirror stood for the same service to crown and country his family had shown for centuries, beginning with his ancestor and contemporary of the mirror, John Vereker, who was one of the gallant gentlemen, afterwards styled ‘the 49 officers’, deprived of his commission by Cromwell for their royalist sentiments, but rewarded with lands by the new king, Charles II, for his loyalty to the crown.10
His descendant, Charles Vereker (1768-1842), Colonel of the Limerick Militia and later the 2nd Viscount Gort in 1817, was renowned for his important victory over the French at Killala Bay, County Sligo in 1798. He inherited the viscounty from his maternal uncle, the heir of the Prendergasts of Tipperary and County Galway, themselves descended from Maurice, Lord of Prendergast in Pembrokeshire, one of the Norman knights who sailed to Ireland with Strongbow in 1179.11
The 5th Viscount, who married a daughter and co-heiress of R. S. Surtees (1805-1864), the famous author who wrote his novels at Hamsterley, was a Royal Artillier, advancing to captain in the 4th Brigade, South Irish Division. He was the father of Standish and his elder brother John, the 6th Viscount, one of the most decorated soldiers of the Great War, mentioned in dispatches nine times and known to his soldiers as Tiger Gort.
He received the Victoria Cross in September 1918 for his actions at Canal du Nord, the official citation reading, ‘For most on-spicuous bravery, skilful leading and devotion to duty…By his magnificent example of devotion to duty cand utter disregard of personal safety all ranks were inspired to exert themselves to the utmost’.12
Fig. 2: Standish Robert Gage Prendergast Vereker, Bassano Ltd., whole-plate glass negative, 30 April 1921 (NPG x120960)
In 1937, Gort was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff and in 1939 named Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. After action on Malta where he was govenor he received his Field Marshal’s baton from King George VI in 1943. 13
Standish himself served in the Great War, being wounded three times and earning a Military Cross, and in the Second World War, under his brother, becoming an honorary colonel in 1948. He and his wife donated generously throughout their lives, giving Bunratty Castle to the Irish people in 1954 and an important collection of Renaissance paintings to the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1973, also completing restoration of Surtees House in Newcastle.
When Gort died, the mirror passed to his brother’s granddaughter, The Hon. Catherine Mary ‘Kate’ Wass, OBE via the 6th Viscount’s daughter the Hon. Jacqueline Corrine Yvonne Vereker who in 1940 married William Philip Sidney, 1 st Viscount De L’Isle.
Kate Wass was a direct ancestor of George III via his third son Prince William, Duke of Clarence, later William IV, and his mistress, the Drury Lane actress Mrs Jordan (1761-1816), who lived together for twenty years at Bushy House.
Kate was descended from their eldest daughter, Lady Sophia Fitz Clarence, who in 1825 married Philip Shelly Sidney, 1st Baron De L’Isle and Dudley, a collateral descendant of Sir Philip Sidney and first cousin of Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Their only son, Philip, 2nd Baron, had three sons. The third, William, who became the 5th Baron, was Kate’s grandfather,
and his son, William Philip Sidney, 1 st Viscount De L’Isle, Kate’s father, who himself received the Victoria Cross for his defence at Anzio during the Second World War.
1 A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 From Charles II to Queen Anne (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 141
2 Victoria & Albert Museum, Accession No. W.37-1949
3 For Knole, see National Trust, 130034 & 130014.1/2, and those in the Royal Collection, see RCIN 35300
4 P. Thornton, Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration (New Haven, 1978), pp. 232-3, pl. 218; c.f. also the mirror formerly in the Vernon Collection at Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire (NT 652738)
5 Bowett (2002), pp. 17-20; c.f. Ham House, Middlesex and Boughton House, Northamptonshire
6 Ibid., pp. 26-7
7 Ibid., pp. 27-9
8 C. Hussey, ‘Hamsterley Hall, Durham: The Seat of the Hon. S. R. Vereker, M. C.’, Country Life, 21st October 1939, pp. 418-22
9 ‘Hamsterley Hall - Halls & Manors of County Durham & The Borders’, Sunniside Local History Society, no. 4
10 Brian de Breffny, ‘The Vereker Family’, Irish Ancestor, Vol. V., No. 2 (1973), pp. 69-75
11 Hussey, Country Life (1939), p. 418
12 ‘No. 30466’. The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 January 1918, pp. 557–8
13 c.f. also Colville, J. R., Man of Valour: The Life of Field-Marshal the Viscount Gort (London, 1972)
CHEST
c. 1730 - 40
England, London.
Walnut on oak and deal, brass.
H: 79.4 W: 87 D: 49.5 cm
Provenance:
R. F. Lambe, Esq., London
Ronald A. Lee, London
Mrs Charles Stuart
Mr John Parry, sold Christie’s, London, The John Parry Collection, 24 March 2010, lot 38, GBP 70,000
This chest is one of the finest surviving examples of its type, exhibting the very best quality cabinet-work and materials. The top is quartered and cross- and feather-banded with an ovolo-bead around the edges and re-entrant mouldings at the corners. A baize-lined slide is above two short drawers simulated as three and three long graduated drawers, similarly banded. One side has a fitted pen and ink drawer and the other a simulated one to match, each above a carrying handle. The back of the chest is veneered and the whole is raised on an ovolo-moulded base and bracket feet.
The chest is discussed by Dr Adam Bowett (2009).
The carcase cockbeads and thin-railed second-phase construction, in addition to the ovolo-bead mouldings, suggest a date of 1730-40.1
The slide and pen drawer indicate that the chest was intended for writing as well as use as a dressing table, and the veneered back that it was possibly for placement away from the wall.
The chest has passed through the hands of several notable connoisseurs of English furniture, one of them the dealer Ronald A. Lee and another the walnut collector John Parry, who held it in such high regard that it was not sold in his first collection sale at Christie’s in April 1997 but retained to form ‘the nucleus of the present collection’, sold at Christie’s in 2010.
1 A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009), p.101, figs. 3:14-5
8. PAIR OF CHAIRS
c. 1760 - 65
England, London. Walnut, modern cut velvet upholstery.
H: 96.4 W: 70.6 D: 66.8 cm
Provenance: Richard Courtney Ltd.
Private Collection, Stockholm, Sweden
The present chairs are of the same model as those supplied by Paul Saunders to the 3rd Viscount Weymouth, later 1st Marquess of Bath (1734-1796), for Longleat, part of a suite of eight armchairs and two settees, covered by payments to Saunders of £556 15s. 0d. in November 1757 and £300. 0s. 0d. in November 1759, and to the 1st Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall, part of a suite of ‘10 Elbow / chairs with carved and gilt / frames’ for which ‘Mr. Saunders’ charged £74. 0s. 4d. on 11th June 1757.1
Like the Longleat and Holkham chairs, the present chairs have serpentine rectangular backs and out-pointing shaped arms carved on the terms with scrolls and on the supports with upspringing acanthus. The present chairs bear particular resemblance to the Longleat examples which do not feature carved rails and are raised on cabriole legs terminating in feet scrolled in the manner as the present chairs.
The present armchairs compare particularly with the suite of eight armchairs likely made by Saunders for the 2nd Earl of Egremont for Petworth House, Sussex (NT 485400.1-7), associated with the 1763 bill to the Earl’s executors detailing ‘8 smaller French Elbow chairs...£40’.1 The pair and the set feature the same shell-issuing-acanthus-leaf carving on the knees, in addition to upspringing acanthus on the arm supports as seen before. Like the Petworth chairs, the present examples are constructed in walnut.
Saunders was one of the most fashionable upholders of the 1750s and 1760s, enjoying the patronage of the grandest aristocratic taste-makers of the mid eighteenth century as well as Royal appointment from October 1757 as ‘Yeoman Arras Worker to the Great Wardrobe’, and from May 1761 as ‘Yeoman Tapestry Taylor’, positions which he held concurrently until his death in 1771.
In addition to Longleat, Holkham and Petworth, he worked at Uppark House and Woburn Abbey and Bedford House. He was employed in the furnishing of Mansion House in London and Hagley Hall and Audley End. Other clients included the Dukes of Cumberland, Norfolk and Northumberland and the Earls Spencer, Temple and of Scarborough, Albemarle and Darlington, Viscount
Irwin and Sir Orlando Bridgeman. The present chairs will have been supplied to one of Saunders’ aristocratic clients, possibly one those aforementioned.3
1 Christie’s, Furniture, Silver and Porcelain from Longleat (June 2002), 14 June 2002, lot 338, GBP 81,260; A. Coleridge, ‘Some Mid-Georgian Cabinet-Makers at Holkham’, Apollo, February 1964, p. 123, fig. 2
2 Gervase Jackson-Stops, ‘The furniture at Petworth’, Apollo, 105.183 (1977), pp. 358-66
3 Beard and Gilbert, Dictionary (1986), pp. 782-5
Fig. 1: Pair of armchairs from the suite of eight supplied by Saunders to the 3rd Viscount Weymouth for Longleat in 1757-59
Fig. 2: Armchair from the Petworth suite featuring the same shell and acanthus leaf carved decoration on the knees
c. 1774 - 82
By William Partridge. Ireland, Dublin.
Carved and gilded wood, glass.
H: 95.4 W: 65.6 cm
Provenance: Private Collection: Dublin, Ireland
This mirror was carved in the workshop of William Partridge between 1774 and 1782, when it was established in Parliament Street, Dublin, named on the trade label surviving on the reverse of this mirror.
The mirror is carved abundantly with branches and leaves, berries, C-scrolls and fronds. Of particular note is the delightfully detailed treatment of the leaves’ surface.
Its design shows the possible influence of Thomas Johnson, who spent some years of his early career working in Dublin for a ‘Mr. Partridge’.1 The vines, ending in slightly hollowed twigs, express the vigorous naturalism of the rustic style he pioneered. Yet, an example of the confluence of the many styles fashionable at this time, the mirror also features a neoclassical tied ribbon bow at the apron.
The mirror is closely comparable to the work of two of Partridge’s Dublin contemporaries. A mirror bearing the label of John Booker is a nearly identical model, as is the set of three pier glasses supplied for the dining room at Castletown, Co. Kildare, almost certainly by Richard Cranfield in 1768.2 Like these mirrors, the plate of the present example is retained by a ropetwist and hung from a carved rope knot.
1 Simon, J., ‘Thomas Johnson’s “The Life of the Author”’, Furniture History, Vol. 39 (2003), p. 49 (42)
2 The Knight of Glin and Peill, James, Irish Furniture (London: 2007), p. 147, fig. 201, p.126, fig. 171
SET OF FOUR CHAIRS
c. 1775
England, London.
Carved mahogany, polychrome paint.
H: 97.8 W: 52.7 D: 48.3 cm
Provenance:
Supplied to George Brodrick, 4th Viscount Midleton (d.1836) for Peper Harow, Surrey, and by descent
Lady Moyra Loyd, née Brodrick, daughter of the 1st Earl of Midleton
The Property of a Family Trust; Christie’s London, 21 April 1994, lots 304-306; With Jonathan Harris, London
Christie’s, New York, 15 April 2005, lots 220-1
Christie’s, 13 December 2018, lots 91-2 (GBP 50,000; 56,250)
These hall chairs, painted with the Midleton family crest below a Viscount’s coronet, were originally located at Peper Harow, the seat of the Viscounts Midleton in Surrey. An 1851 inventory of the house by Farebrother, Clark & Lye of London recorded them as: “A Pair of Mahogany Hall Chairs with crest emblazoned on panels” in the “Inner Hall,” and “6 Mahogany Hall Chairs with Crest emblazoned on white panels” in the “Entrance Hall and Portico.” Photographs of part of the set were featured in Country Life magazine in 1925.1
George Brodrick, 4th Viscount Midleton (1754-1836), inherited the title and estates in England and Ireland upon his father’s death in 1765 when he was just eleven years old. Only five months before, his father, the 3rd Viscount (1730-65), had commissioned esteemed architect William Chambers (1723-96) - from 1769–82 Comptroller of the King’s Works - to design a new house at Peper Harow. In George’s minority construction continued under the supervision of his mother, Albinia, and was completed after he came of age in 1775, with the furnishing finalized by 1777 under Chambers’s ongoing leadership.
Fig. 1: Four of the chairs photographed in Peper Harrow, H. A. Tipping, ‘Peper Harow, Surrey’, Country Life, 26 December 1925, p. 1005, fig. 5
Chambers, a self-proclaimed ‘Very pretty Connoisseur in furniture’, naturally turned to his preferred cabinet-makers, the renowned London firm of John Mayhew (17361811) and William Ince (1737-1834), who were leading advocates of neo-classicism. The Peper Harow chairs can be compared to a nearly identical set of eight painted chairs at Broadlands, Hampshire. Though no specific bills survive for the Broadlands furniture, these chairs are part of a broader collection attributed to Mayhew and Ince and were listed in a household inventory of 1786.2
Both sets share distinctive features, including roundels and fluted seat rails, and the model was clearly highly fashionable, with a further set photographed by Country Life at Castle Howard, Yorkshire and another supplied to Robert Myddelton-Biddulph for his London house in Albermarle Street, later descending to Chirk Castle, Wales.3 No bills amongst the Peper Harow papers listing the present chairs survive. Although, Mayhew and Ince were likely paid by Chambers himself, who acted as paymaster on the project. The firm appears frequently in his’ Drummonds account, the two often collaborating together on project, during the late 1760s for example for the refurbishment of Blenheim Palace for the 4th Duke of Marlborough.4
Notably, Mayhew is recorded in Albinia’s ‘My Children’s Acc’t’ in February 1767 when he supplied a bed, so the firm was known to the family from an early date and would have likely been approved by the family in Chambers’ proposal.
The carving on the Peper Harow chairs is almost certainly the work of Sefferin Alken (fl. 1744-83), a specialist carver who mainted close relationships with London’s
top cabinet-making firms. Having worked extensively with Chambers on notable projects such as the medal cabinet for the 1st Earl of Charlemont and various pieces for Blenheim Palace and Woburn Abbey, he was likely requested by Chambers who exercised very close supervision in the matter of furnishing and decorative arts.5 Alken was also doubtless known to Mayhew & Ince, having for example previously worked for John Cobb at Croome Court, where the pair had also supplied furniture.6
1 H. A. Tipping, ‘Peper Harow, Surrey’, Country Life, 26 December 1925, p. 1005, fig. 5; H. A. Tipping, English Homes, Period VI, Vol. I, p. 279, fig. 439; C. Hussey, English Country Houses, ‘Mid-Georgian 1760-1800’ (London, 1956), p. 111, fig. 205; J. Harris, Sir William Chambers (London, 1970), pl. 88
2 H. Roberts, ‘The Ince and Mayhew Connection: Furniture at Broadlands, Hampshire – I’, Country Life, 29 January 1981, pp. 288-9, fig. 6
3 H. Avray Tipping, English Homes, Period IV, Vol. II (London, 1927), p. 35; c.f. ‘the Myddelton Family, Chirk Castle, Christie’s house sale, 21 June 2004, lot 54, and later Christie’s, London, 10 May 2006, lots 90-1
4 J. Harris, Sir William Chambers: Knight of the Polar Star (London, 1970), pp. 175-6, 199
5 G. Beard, C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660 - 1840 (Leeds, 1986), p. 59
6 Ibid., p. 8; c.f. also Nicholas Goodison, William Chamber’s Furniture Designs’, Furniture History (1990), Vol. 26, pp. 81-3
PAIR OF PIER GLASSES
c. 1720 - 25
England, London.
Carved and gilded wood, glass.
H: 218.5 W: 87.3 cm
Provenance:
Possibly supplied to Francis Godolphin (1678-1766), 2 nd Earl of Godolphin for Godolphin House, Cornwall or Stable Yard, St. James’ Palace, London and by descent
Henry Francis Dupont, Winterthur Museum, Delaware c. 1983
Sold Christie’s NY, 2 February 1991, lot 208 (USD 143,000)
The present mirrors compare closely with the two pier glasses supplied by John Belchier (1699-1753) to Erddig Hall, Wales, on 15th July 1723 and 6th June 1726 for the two best bedchambers for £36 and £50.1
The earlier mirror is the same stepped rectangular form as the present mirrors. The 1726 mirror is nearly identical, with bold central scrolls and eagles’ heads of identical posture. The cost of £50 for this single mirror provides an idea of the significant price the present pair will have commanded when they were supplied in the early eighteenth century.
The mirrors also compare with Belchier’s attributed work, namely a mirror in the Untermyer Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and another formerly in the collection of Gerald Hochschild, which both feature a stepped plate, scrolls and eagles’ heads.2
Belchier was one of the most important cabinet-makers of the early eighteenth century, described in the London Evening Post on his death as ‘for many years past a very eminent cabinetmaker’. 2 Erddig Hall is his most significant known commission. In addition to the mirrors, he likely supplied the State Bed in 1720 which features eagles’ heads on the tester, prefiguring the same on the 1726 pier glass and the present mirrors.
Though a popular motif in the baroque repetory, the dolphin naiant in the pediments of the mirrors suggests that they were made for a patricular patron, in this case possibly Francis Godolphin (1678-1766), 2 nd Earl of Godolphin. The dolphin naiant has been the heraldic symbol of the Godolphins of Rialton and Helston since at least the sixteenth century, as a reference to the family name and substantial landholding in Cornwall. A dolphin naiant as it appears in the mirrors’
crests is first seen in the arms of the 2nd Earl’s father, Sidney Godolphin, 1 st Earl (1645-1712), and the mirror carvings are very possibly modelled on the pair of carved, parcel gilt and painted wooden dolphins naiant (NT 169408) thought to have originally served as helmet crests for Sir William Godolphin (c.1518-70).
The 2nd Earl was a prominent politician and courtier during the lifetime of Belchier, serving as an MP and Peer, Lord of the Bedchamber to the first two Georges and Governor of the Scilly Islands. Eminent in London social circles, Godolphin will have been familiar with the most accomplished and fashionable cabinet-makers in the city at the time. His uncle, Dr Henry Godolphin, was Dean of St. Paul’s where Belchier supplied window glass and his workshop was located, and it is possible that it was through this connection that Godolphin commissioned the present mirrors.
Fig. 1: The arms of The Right Honourable Francis Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin, Viscount Rialton, Baron Godolphin of Rialton and Baron of Helston
Fig. 2: The pair of wooden dolphins thought to have served as helmet crests for Sir William Godolphin, in the collection of Godolphin House, Helston, Cornwall (NT 169408)
Francis was born to the titan of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century politics, Sidney Godolphin, who under Queen Anne assumed such prominence alongside his chief ally John Churchill that the two were named ‘the Duumvirs’. In March 1698 Francis married Lady Henrietta, eldest daughter of Churchill, the victor of Blenheim, first duke of Marlborough and ancestor of Winston. She would become notorious for her attachment to dramatist William Congreve, with it suspected that her fifth child, Mary, was his daughter.
Francis was one of the founding governors of the Foundling Hospital, an orphanage charity created to tackle the problem of child abandonment. He also had the distinction of owning one of the founding thoroughbred sires, the Godolphin Arabian.
It is said that he only read two works, Burnet’s History of my own Time and Colley Cibber’s Apology . When he had perused them throughout, he began them again.3 Francis died at his house in St James’ on 17 th January 1766 and was buried in Kensington Church, just down the road from the Rolleston Gallery.
1 NT 1146960-1; Bowett, A., Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009) p. 292, pls. 6:50-1
2 Accession No. 46.116; Synge, Mallett’s Great English Furniture, 1991, p. 89, fig. 94
2 G. Beard, C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660 - 1840 (Leeds, 1986), p. 59
3 George Clement Boase, ‘Godolphin, Francis’, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, eds. Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (London, 1890)
Fig. 3: Pier glass supplied to Erddig in 1723, with the same form and stepped upper frame (NT 1146960)
Fig. 4: Pier glass supplied to Erddig in 1726, with identical central scrolls and eagle’s head decoration (NT 1146961)
SET OF FOUR TORCHÈRES
c. 1740 - 50 England, London. Mahogany.
H: 111.1 D: 55.9 cm
Provenance:
Sir John Hobart, 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire (1693 - 1756) for the Long Gallery at Blickling Hall, Norfolk
By descent to Harriet Hobart upon whose marriage to William Kerr, 6th Marquess of Lothian (1763 - 1824) the torchères entered the Lothian collection
By descent in the collection of the Marquesses of Lothian
Private Collection: West Coast, USA
Predominantly found as single examples or in pairs, a set of four mahogany torchères is rare. These are a refined form conceived to exhibit the quality of the mahogany used in their construction.
The torchères were made for Sir John Hobart, 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire to hold candelabra to light the Long Gallery at Blickling, converted by him in the 1740s to house the famous library. The torchères were many times photographed in situ in Country Life articles about the house (opposite, Fig. 1: 1903).1
The present Jacobean mansion was built by Sir Henry Hobart, Lord Chief Justice to James I, after he bought the estate in 1616. There has, however, been a residence on the site of the Hall since at least the late fourteenth century, and in the sixteenth the Todor manor was the birthplace of Anne Boleyn.
When the stands were discovered in the attics of Monteviot House, the residence of the Marquess of Lothian, to whose family Blickling passed in the nineteenth century, two of the present set were still in their packaging dating to their removal from Blickling in the early twentieth century.
1 The torchères are illustrated in ‘Blickling Hall, Norfolk – II’, Country Life, 21st June 1903, p. 907, fig. 11; ‘Blickling Hall, Norfolk’, Country Life, 9th December 1905, p. 828; John Maddison, ‘Blickling Hall, Norfolk – I’, Country Life, 17th March 1988, p. 107, fig. 7; and Elizabeth Griffiths et al., Blickling Hall, The National Trust, 1987, p. 46
Fig. 1: A pair of the torchères photographed in situ, ‘Blickling Hall, Norfolk – II’, Country Life, 21st June 1903, p. 907, fig. 11
PAIR OF STOOLS
c. 1720 - 40 England. Walnut, period needlework upholstery.
H: 41 W: 50 D: 39 cm
These charming stools are a rare pair. Executed in the solid, the cabriole legs and pad feet are united by finely turned stretchers with slight entasis. The rails are ovolo moulded. The drop-in seats are covered in eighteenth-century floral needlework.
PAIR OF CABINETS
c. 1800 England, London. Rosewood, satinwood, tulipwood and gilded wood on mahogany and deal, brass, textile.
H: 82.9 W: 94.5 D: 44.2 cm
The tapering pilasters and idiosyncratic feet of these cabinets are features found on a closely comparable pair of rosewood chiffoniers and a commode en suite designed by Henry Holland for Mrs Whitbread’s room at Southill, Bedfordshire, almost certainly ordered from Marsh & Tatham, during the refurbishment of the house between 1796 and 1802.1
The interiors and furniture of the room and adjoining boudoir show Holland’s style ‘at its most French and most refined’, and are the most complete extant example of Holland’s flair. Marsh & Tatham were part of a group of craftsmen who worked with Holland and marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre at Southill as well as for the Prince of Wales at Carlton House.2
Another closely related cabinet almost certainly supplied by the same firm to George Osborne, 6th Duke of Leeds, for Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, sold Christie’s, London, 13 November 2014, lot 198 (GBP 60,000).
A pair of the same model, formerly with Jeremy Ltd., sold Christie’s New York, 9 April 2019 (USD 56,250).
1 F. J. B. Watson, ‘The Furniture and Decoration’, Southill (London, 1951), figs. 35-36
2 G. Beard & C. Gilbert (eds.), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840 (Leeds, 1986), pp. 623-4
PAIR OF CANNON
c. 1849 - 60 England, London. Bronze, oak.
H: 43 W: 38 L: 69 cm
Provenance: Private Collection: London, UK
Cannon such as these charming, small-scale examples were often used for commencing regattas and other celebrations.
The finely-worked barrels are stamped with the maker’s mark of Fred Barnes, 109 Fenchurch Street, London and supported on oak carriages.
SUITE OF EIGHT CHAIRS
c. 1755 - 60
England, London. Mahogany, needlework, leather castors.
H: 97.8 W: 70.5 D: 68.6 cm
Provenance:
Suite of eight supplied to Robert Berkeley (1713-1804) of Spetchley Park, Worcestershire; thence by descent
Sold as four pairs, Sotheby’s London, 11December 2019, lots 47-50, GBP 100,000, 62,500, 143,750, 118,750
This suite of eight armchairs, one of the finest of its type, is of mahogany, retaining, quite remarkably, the original needlework seat covers, each of which is unique, with its own design and colour scheme.
The undulating top rails of the chairs are decorated with crisply-formed C-scrolls and the shaped arms and cabriole front legs with acanthus and scrolled toes. Notably, the splats are stencilled and, amongst further C-scrolls, carved with pointed ornament, resembling ogival forms in Gothic architecture. In this context, the nibs of the C-scrolls - particularly when they meet - are crockets, enhancing this sublte impression of the style intended by the designer.1
The lower half of the splats derive from the preceding generation of walnut chairs.
The suite was probably acquired by Berkeley shortly after he inherited Spetchley in 1756. In his lifetime he would make many changes to the house, inluding remodel the Dining Room in the newly-popular Adam style, and so these chairs were likely installed as part of his early work to the house.
It is interesting that in his library Berkeley had a copy of Chippendale’s first Director (1754). Interesting though not suprising, for a fashion-conscious man keen to acquire an example of the latest ‘French’ Rococo style. Whether or not they can be ascribed to Chippendale, by whose patterns however they were certainly influenced, they were crafted by a workshop working in the latest styles, with access to the very finest draughtsmen, carvers and materials.
The present chairs were listed in the 1893 inventory of Spetchley and in the 1949 take, when they were given the highest value of any piece at house of £2,000
1 Francis Spar (ed.), Le Style Anglais 1750-1850 (Paris, 1959), p. 88; c.f. also Anthony Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture (London, 1968), fig.168 & C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, 1 8th Century English Furniture: The Norman Adams Collection (Woodbridge, 1994) rev. ed., p. 51 for further gothic chairs
2: One of the armchairs from the suite photographed in the Drawing Room, ‘Spetchley Park - I. Worcestershire, The Seat of Mr. R. V. Berkeley’, Country Life (8 July 1916), p. 46
Fig. 1: The suite of eight armchairs, showing the eight unique needlework seats
Fig.
c. 1750 - 60
England, London. By Robert Mawley. Black and cream japanned wood, metal.
H: 237.5 W: 54.6 D: 26.4 cm
Provenance: The Anne and Gordon Getty Collection, Wheatland
While many English japanned longcase clocks from the eighteenth century have survived, those with a cream and yellow ground are particularly rare.
The present longcase clock has a two train brass dial hour-striking eight-day movement. The 12 inch break arch brass dial has an applied silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring with bold fleur-de-lys half hour markers and a subsidiary seconds dial.
The domed hood is above a moulded arch, supported on a pair of Doric columns flanking the clock dial which has a four pillar plated movement with original anchor escapement.
The cream and gilt-japanned decoration is in a remarkable state of preservation. The clock has a raised panelled base with a double stepped plinth and a long moulded bridge-top trunk door. The scenes show exotic figures in pagodas and on horseback in a rural setting amongst trees and birds on branches.
A related example, with cartouche panels depicting chinoiserie scenes similar to this clock, is illustrated in H. Huth, Lacquer of the West: The History of a Craft and an Industry, 1550-1950 (Chicago, 1971), fig. 74.
There is also a mahogany longcase clock of similar proportions by Robert Mawley in the collection at Polesden Lacey, Surrey (NT 1246209).
England,
Provenance: The Hotel Lambert, Paris, France
c. 1810
London. Mahogany, brass.
H: 71 L: 291 (extended) W: 138 cm
c. 1765
England, London. Mahogany, brass.
H: 82.6 W: 109.2 D: 62.2 cm
Provenance:
With L. Loewenthal, London, 1951
Fig. 1: Exhibited, The Antique Dealers’ Fair and Exhibition, 1951 with L. Loewenthal, illustrated cat. p. 63
Sir Robert Victor Cooke (1902-78), Athelhampton House, Dorset
Elegantly serpentine in form, this commode is not carved on the styles with scrolls or foliage or Chinese or Gothic fretwork. Rather, classical elements of paterae, ribbons, husks and scales feature, signalling the advent of the major development in the design landscape of eighteenth-century England: the transition from the mid-century Rococo to the newly fashionable ‘antique’ taste that emerged in the 1760s under the influence of Robert Adam.1
Fig. 2: The commode open, the top drawer with a hinged writing slope, lidded compartments and secret drawers
The quality of the commode, expressed in the cabinet-work, carving and superior mahogany, suggests a leading London firm such as Chippendale or Mayhew & Ince. Aspects of the design and construction, namely the stacked block feet, S-shaped escutcheons and lion’s mask handles, are also strongly associated with these workshops, being features of their documented work.
The commode was formerly in the collection of Sir Robert Cooke, a retired surgeon from Bristol who purchased Athelhampton House in 1957, furnishing it with his collection of furniture. The house is one of the most important and best preserved Tudor manors in England, with the Great Hall remaining greatly unchanged since
its creation in 1485, retaining its original hammer-beam roof, stonework, stained glass and linenfold panelling.
A manor has existed on the site since before 1066 and the house, then called Pidele, is recorded in the Domesday Book. The present house was built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries for the Martyn family and in the nineteenth was visited several times by Thomas Hardy, whose father was as a stonemason on the property.
1 Bowett, A. and Lomax, J., Thomas Chippendale 17181799: A Celebration of British Craftsmanship and Design (2018), pp. 84-95 and Gilbert, C., The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, Vol. 1 (London, 1978), pp. 108-24
Fig. 3: Athelhampton House, Dorset
MIRROR
c. 1730 - 40
England, probably London.
Carved and gilded gesso on wood, glass.
H: 137 W: 76 cm
Tabernacle mirrors first appeared in c. 1720 as part of the Neo-Palladian revolution in architecture. In early eighteenth-century parlance, a ‘tabernacle’ was a niche in a wall housing a statue or bust. On the emergence of mirrors of this form, Dr Bowett writes:
‘The idea ultimately came from classical temples such as the Pantheon in Rome, where statues of deities were placed in niches around the walls of the building. In the case of the tabernacle mirror the figure of the deity was replaced by that of the viewer, seemingly without any sense of irony.’ 1
The present mirror features the hallmarks of this new archicturally-based style, with the tabernacle form of a rectangular plate and pedimented frame carved with angular top corner mouldings, S-shaped scrolled bottom corners and an enriching sanded gilded surface.2
With a large shell, gadroons and arabesque strapwork, however, the design retains combined elements of the baroque style, to which this Neo-Palladian style emerged as a competitor.3
With an old surface and original plate, this example possesses a palpable sense of period atmosphere.
1 A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009) p. 294-5
1 Ibid., p. 283
3 Ibid., p. 294
SET OF SIX CHAIRS
c. 1730
England, London. Scarlet and gilt-japanned wood, cane.
H: 111.8 W: 48.9 D: 50.8 cm
Provenance:
Private Collection: London, UK
It is especially rare to offer a set of six japanned chairs, which were likely originally part of a larger suite of eight or twelve. The decoration is of particularly high quality, fluent and lively, and the chairs themselves are well carved and drawn.
The chairs are naturally associated with the famous Infantado suite of red-japanned furniture supplied by Giles Grendey for the Duke of Infantado of the Spanish castle of Lazcano, which has become symbolic of this type of furniture.
The present examples are different in form, however, and compare more closely to a pair of chairs, though green and gilt-japanned, in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg.1 Another known set of six chairs, though with elaborate crestings and higher backs denoting a slightly earlier date, is illustrated by Partridge.2 A black-japanned chair is illustrated by Dr Bowett.3
1 H. Huth, Lacquer of the West: The History of a Craft and an Industry, 1550-1950 (Chicago, 1971), fig. 88
2 Partridge Fine Arts, 1988 Summer Exhibition Catalogue, No. 10, pp. 30-2
3 A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009) p. 158, pl. 4:29
c. 1815 - 25
Italy, possibly Rome or Florence; England, London. 112 marbles and hardstones, rosewood, gilded wood.
H: 73.7 D: 80.2 cm
The formation and colour arrangement of these marble spcimens is seen on many similar circular and rectangular table tops of this type, suggesting a common workshop or group of closely related workshops. A similar table is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (W.34:1, 2-1978), the apparent pair to which sold in Christie’s (GBP 111,650).1 Another is in London’s Geological Museum.
A handful more have been illustrated in situ in private collections and sold at auction in recent years, including those possibly commissioned by the Marquess of Zetland for St. Nicholas and by Lord St. Helens for his house in Grafton Street which undoubtedly originated in the same workshop.2 Possibly the most spectacular of these however was the example signed ’Alfonso Cavamelli fece l’anno 1832 Roma’ which sold in Christie’s (GBP 401,300).3
The micro-mosaic at the centre of this top distinguishes it from these examples which all feature a plain hardstone core. Central mosaics make tables of this type considerably more interesting and special, and the Doves of Pliny is undoubtedly one of the most desirable of the range of subjects found.
In light of the number of survivals of these tables in England, this workshop or group thereof evidently enjoyed considerable renown and prestige at the time as a must-stop shop for aristocrats on their Grand Tour.
Amongst the retailers of these richly polychromed tops was the Rome-based merchant François de Sanctis, who sold a similar one to R.W. Bland of Belfast. It was shipped from Leghorn in 1826, although its accompanying booklet revealed that it had been manufactured in Florence in 1817 and was inscribed ‘Pietre in Tavola Rotunda Firenze’ (sold Christie’s New York, 29 January 1994, lot 305).
These tables were souvenirs for young gentlemen of their time in Italy and representations of their classical education in culture, art and architecture. Such tables also signified the collecting culture and traditions of connoisseurship fostered by the Grand Tour since its emergence in the early seventeenth century.
The motif of Pliny’s doves, popular in Italy during this period, derives from the mosaic in Villa Adriana, discovered in 1737 by Cardinal Furietti, from whom it was purchased by Clement XIII. Considered one of the finest and most perfectly preserved specimens of ancient mosaic, it represents four doves drinking. The mosias on the present table is expertly executed, with the beak of the central blue dove reflected exquisitely in the water below.
The mosaic is supposed to be the work of Sosus, and is described by Pliny as a proof of the perfection to which that art had arrived. He says: ‘At Pergamos is a wonderful specimen of a dove drinking, and darkening the water with the shadow of her head; on the lip of the vessel are other doves pluming themselves.’4
The base of the table is similarly fine quality, made of veneered rosewood and parcel gilt. It bears relation to Gillow patterns of the period.
1 Clive Wainwright et al., George Bullock: Cabinet Maker (London, 1988), no. 50 and Frances Collard, Regency Furniture (Woodbridge, 1985), p. 136; Christie’s, 20 Nov 2008, lot 540
3+ For the Zetland and Helens examples, see Christie’s, 16 May 2001, lot 260 and 22 Jan 2009, lot 550; c.f also the example illus. F. Grand d’Hauteville, Le Château d’Hauteville (Lausanne, 1932), pp. 129-130 (sold Christie’s, 30 Sep 2014, lot 21); example illus.
E. Brown, Sixty Years of Interior Design: The World of McMillen (New York, 1982), p. 202 (Christie’s, 30 Mar 2021, lot 7); and Christie’s, 10 Jun 2004, lot 66
3 Christie’s, London, 22 Nov 2007, lot 50
4 Pliny the Elder, Natural History XXXVII, Chapter XIV
23. COMMODE
England, London. Mahogany, ormolu.
H: 85 W: 141 D: 68 cm
Provenance: Sold Sotheby’s, 14th June 1985, lot 90
Partridge (Fine Arts) Ltd., London, 1986
c. 1765
This commode is one of a group of closely-related commodes attributed to Vile & Cobb discussed by Lucy Wood in section one of her Catalogue of Commodes, where the present commode is illustrated.1
A sub-group of the main group of commodes contains examples with the common feature of female mask stile mounts. This includes the examples at Burghley House, Blickling Hall (NT 354356.1-2), Woburn Abbey and the Lady Lever Art Gallery, the masks of which are also ornamented identically with rocaille collars, C-scrolls, acanthus leaves, gadrooning, strapwork, husks and lapped lambrequins.
A smaller number still features splayed legs with hoof feet, the other commodes in this sub-group featuring square bracket feet mounted with acanthus leaves. Only seven including the present example are known:
(1) Metropolitan Museum of Art (Acc. No. 61.242.1)
(2) Blickling Hall, Norfolk (NT 354321)
(3) H. Percy Dean Collection2
(4) Sir Archibald Edmonstone Collection3
(5) Mrs Langdale Smith Collection, ultimately sold Christie’s, 16 April 2002 (USD 163,500)4
(6) Example sold Neal Auction Company, 4 December 1999 (USD 275,000)5
The hooves indicate a lighter, more mature Rococo style, according with the handles and escutcheons on the present commode which, like the Dean and Edmonstone examples but unlike those at Blickling and Met, are pierced, again indicating an updated, more refined Rococo design.
The Blickling commode, and the four others that remain at the house, were almost certainly covered by a payment by the 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire of £86.5s.9d. to ‘Vile & Cobb cabinet-makers’ in August 1762.6 Not only practically confirming the authorship, this provides a clue for the date of the present commode. Yet, with its updated Rococo metalware it possibly dates to a few years later, perhaps 1764 onwards, making it was the work of Cobb alone, his partner Vile retiring that year.
Renowned for his designs in the French taste, alongside his St. Martin’s Lane neighbour Thomas Chippendale, John Cobb led the synthesis of French and English styles so popular in England during the 1750s and 60s. He entered partnership with William Vile in 1751 and a decade later the pair was appointed cabinet-makers to George III, supplying in the next years a series of celebrated pieces for the royal palaces.
Cobb himself was an interesting man. A ‘singularly haughty character’, he was described as ‘one of the proudest men in England’. J. T. Smith in Nollekens and his Times recorded how Cobb ‘in full dress of the most superb and costly kind, strutted through his workshops giving orders to his men’. Smith also relates George III’s placing Cobb in second place through annoyance at his pomposity and imperious delegation of duties to his man Jenkins.7
Quite in keeping with his character, in 1772 Cobb was implicated in the smuggling of furniture from France by the use of the diplomatic bag of the Venetian Resident, Baron Berlindis and the Neapolitan Minister, Count Pignatelli, with the aim of evading import duty.8
Charismatic then, Cobb also had the distinction of being the son-in-law of the great Giles Grendey, perhaps the leading maker of walnut and japanned furniture in the first half of the eighteenth-century. On 31st March 1755 he married Sukey Grendey, Grendey’s’ fourth daughter.
Commodes from this group have achieved significant auction prices. In addition to the examples of the model of the present commode already cited, a commode from the Lucy Wood group with the same espagnolette mask mounts supplied to the Duke of Bolton for Hackwood Park sold Christie’s, 8 July 1999 for GBP 199,500. Another of identical model supplied to the Earl of Ashburnham for Ashburnham Place c. 1760-61, sold Christie’s, 19 October 2000 for USD 171,000.
Additionally, a commode of the model exemplified by the
Mrs Venetia Gairdner example, with provenance of R. A. Lee, sold Christie’s, 19 April 2001, USD 446,000.
1 L. Wood (1994), p. 52, fig. 8
2 Macquoid, P., The Age of Mahogany (London, 1906), pl. X and Edwards, R. & Macquoid, P., The Dictionary of English Furniture, Vol. II (London, 1954), p. 115, fig. 10; later in the collection of Sir John Ward and formerly with Sir Maurice Bromley-Wilson, c.f. Cescinsky, Herbert, ‘The collection of the Hon. Sir John Ward, K.C.V.O.’,
Part IV, Connoisseur (August 1921), pp. 195-7, fig. III
3 sold Christie’s London, 27th March 1958, lot 82
4 sold Christie’s London, 24th October 1957, lot 87; thereafter the collection of Michael Behrens, Esq., sold Christie’s London, 6 July 1989, lot 162 (GBP 82,500); with Partridge (Fine Arts) Ltd., London; sold Christie’s New York, 16 April 2002 (USD 163,500)
5 Neal Auction Company, New Orleans, December 1999 (USD 275,000)
6 L. Wood (1994), p. 50
7 G. Beard, C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660 - 1840 (Leeds, 1986), p. 182
8 Idem.
Fig. 2: The example at Blickling Hall, Norfolk (NT 354321)
Fig. 1: The example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Accession No. 61.242.1)
PAIR OF MIRRORS
c. 1760 - 65 England, London. Carved and gilded wood, glass.
H: 139.2 W: 80.2 cm
The mirror plates are contained by C-scrolls and pierced fronds, with rockwork and icicles at the bottom corners. The whole surmounted by a carved pagoda-shaped hat and angular chinoiserie shoulders.
Notably, the mirrors are each carved with a large rising palm leaf on each side, a motif popularised by the John Vardy’s Spencer House triumph, the Palm Room, completed in the late 1750s or early 1760s.1
1 Weber Soros, S. (ed.), James ‘Athenian’ Stuart: The Rediscovery of Antiquity (New Haven and London, 2006)
c. 1740 - 50 England. Mahogany, metal hinges.
H: 60 W: 74 D: 66 cm
Operated by raising the three leaves and revolving the top to rest the flaps on the legs, such tables as these are popularly known as ‘envelope’ or ‘handkerchief’ tables.
The model was first patterned in the 1730s in the trade-sheet issued by Holborn cabinet-maker Thomas Potter.1 It was then later adopted by George William, 6th Earl of Coventry (1722-1809) when he commissioned a table with a rotating top with leaves invoiced by John Cobb on 3rd July 1772 as ‘an inlaide Handkerchief table…6 6s’.2
A rare collector’s piece, this table has a segmented veneered top refined by ovolo-bead moulded edges and re-entrant corners. Comparable examples were formerly in the collections of Peggy and David Rockefeller and Avon Antiques.3
1 C. Gilbert, T. Murdoch, John Channon and Brass-Inlaid Furniture: 1730-1760 (London, 1993), fig. 11
2 A. Coleridge, ‘John Cobb’s ‘Handkerchief’ Table’, Furniture History Society (August 2007), p. 1
3 Rockefeller example sold Christie’s, New York, 9 May 2018, lot 279, USD 22,500; the Avon example Christie’s, London, 21 May 2009, lot 240, GBP 16,250
Fig. 1: Detail of the table showing the the leaves up
c. 1720
England, London.
Black and gilt japanning on oak and deal, brass.
H: 201 W: 104 D: 53 cm
Provenance:
The Cesari Family, Rome, Italy
To complement the earlier scarlet cabinet, No. 2., is a black example, configured however with a secretaire drawer in place of the bureau, as examples of this colour often were in the early eighteenth century.
The cabinet has the refinement of double dome mouldings on the front that continue to the sides.
The whole is decorated with scenes of rural Oriental life comprising birds and animals, as well as the rare depiction of two boats on the bottom drawer.
Comparable examples are illustrated in Bowett, A., Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009) pp. 138-9, pls. 3:82-3 and P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Vol. I (London, 1924), p. 161, fig. 19.
SETTEE
c. 1720 - 35 England, London. Walnut, period needlework upholstery.
Provenance: Edward Hurst, Norfolk, UK
H: 106.7 W: 148.6 D: 73.7 cm
A closely related chair-back settee attributed to Giles Grendey, featuring the same acanthus ornament, claw and ball feet, top rail shell carving and splat shape is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery. The top rail border of the carving of the present settee differs slightly but is in fact replicated on a different chair in the same suite. The consistency across these different features raises the possibility that the present lot belonged to the same suite, and Lucy Wood states that the Lady Lever group ‘is evidently part of a larger suite’.1
Another settee to this design was in the renowned Percival Griffiths Collection, discussed by Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, and more recently by Christian Jussel.2
1 L. Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery (New Haven, 2008), Vol. I, pp. 245-63
2 Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture (1954), Vol. III, p. 82, pl. V; Christian Jussel, English Furniture 1680-1760, The Percival D. Griffiths Collection (London, 2023), Vol. I, no. 128, p. 141
SET OF FOUR TORCHÈRES
c. 1755 - 65
England, London. Gilded wood.
H: 137.2 D: 55.2 cm
This set of torchères, exuberantly carved with rococo ornament, is a credit to the invention and imgination of the draughtsmen and carvers of this period.
Conceived for either vases or candelabra, they are an example of the picturesque style that drew heavily on rococo motifs and forms that originated with the Louis XIV torchères included in Daniel Marot’s Nouveaux Livre d’Ornements of 1703.1 The popularity of the style in Britain was due to the circulation of designs in prominent printed volumes by British cabinet-makers. The third edition (1762) of Chippendale’s Director was one such publication, containing seventeen designs for ‘Candle Stands’ in the French mode.2
A pair of stands of similar design survives a Denton Hall, Yorkshire for which the pen, ink and wash drawing attributed to Chippendale also survives, in the George Lock Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum.3
1 Daniel Marot, Nouveaux Livre d’Ornements (Paris, 1890) reprint, pls. 34 and 38
2 Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director (New York, 1966), pl. CXLVII
3 Christopher Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, Vol. II (London, 1978), figs. 376-7
MIRROR
c. 1785 - 90
Ireland, Dublin.
Blue and white glass, mirror glass.
H: 59.4 D: 39.6 cm
Of a type indigenous to Ireland, this mirror is framed by alternating pieces of faceted blue and white glass. The only known signed mirror for this kind is a girandole example made by John Dederek Ayckboum.1
The present example is distinguished by retaining the original sparkling mirror plate and featuring cut white glass containing gilt sheaf-type decoration.
1 The Knight of Glin and Peill, James, Irish Furniture (London: 2007), p. 269, cats. 254-5
PAIR OF CHAIRS
c. 1760 - 65
England, London. Mahogany, modern damask upholstery.
H: 97 W: 72 D: 79 cm
This fine pair of Gainsborough chairs is of mahogany of excellent colour and patina. The shaped arms are boldly moulded with flowing curvaceuous ornament and the cabriole legs carved with acanthus leaves and scrolled toes, above hexagonal blocks with recessed castors.
This pair reflects the prevailing contemporary taste for ‘French’ furniture popularised famously by designers such as Thomas Chippendale.
c. 1760 - 65
England, London. Mahogany, glass, brass.
H: 250 W: 190 D: 50 cm
Provenance:
Private Collection: London, UK
Mr & Mrs John R. Donnell, Ker Arvor, Newport, USA
A Chippendale design for a bookcase that survives in Sir William Chamber’s proposal for a study (c.176062) at Pembroke House, the London residence of the Earls of Pembroke of Wilton House, is very close to this bookcase, featuring a dentilled swan pediment.1
The overall form, Chinese influence in the pagoda waist moulding, astragals and fretwork, the panelled cupboard doors, dentil moulding and rocaille foliate handles of this bookcase are all design elements that appear across Chippendale’s patterns in the first and third editions of the Director.
The quality of the cabinet-making, construction and materials used supports attribution to Chippendale. The bookcase is in eight parts and the secretaire compartment, the drawers of which are mahogany lined, is fitted with immaculate precision.
In its design this bookcase exhibits Chippendale’s genius for the synthesis the exotic styles of the English Rococo - the Chinese, the Gothic and the Modern or French - in a harmonious whole.2 In the case of the present bookcase, Chinese astragals and a pagoda
waist moulding combine seamlessly with French foliate handles. In the pediment, the Chinese open fretwork is framed by elegant C-scrolls and swan-neck scrolls with foliate terms. All this surface ornament is applied to the classically proportioned form, also accented with dentil mouldings and a central pedestal.
1 C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale (New York: 1978), Vol. II, p. 48, fig. 45
2 Hayward, H., Thomas Johnson and the English Rococo (London: 1964), p. 14
Fig. 1: Chippendale’s design for a breakfront-bookcase for Pembroke House, London, c. 1760-2, illus. Gilbert (1978), Vol. II, p. 48, fig. 45
c. 1775 - 80 England, London. Gilded wood.
H: 198 W: 95 cm
Provenance: The Collection of Lord and Lady Weinstock
This is a rare example of a wall-light of this neoclassical style and large scale, well-proportioned and fluently carved. It shows abundantly the influence of Robert Adam, bearing the particular relation to his designs for girandoles for Derby House and Apsley House of 1774 and 1778 respectively.1
1 Eileen Harris, The Furniture of Robert Adam (London, 1963) p. 88, figs. 93-5
c. 1760 - 65
England, London.
Mahogany on deal and oak, brass.
H: 87 W: 107.3 D: 63.5 cm
Provenance:
The Collection of Lord and Lady Weinstock
Sold Christie’s, London, 22nd November 2022, lot 89, GBP 94,500
This commode is part of a small group of closely-related commodes attributed to royal cabinet-makers William Vile & John Cobb, discussed by Lucy Wood in section one of her Catalogue of Commodes (London, 1994), pp. 43-53.
Within the wider group, the present commode is part of a smaller sub-set comprising examples of this model, of which only five others are known:
(1) The example formerly in the collection of Mrs. Venetia Gairdner, illus. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes (London, 1994), p. 53, fig. 39
(2) The example formerly at Coombe Abbey, sold Sotheby’s, London, 8th October 1965, lot 139
(3) The example formerly with R. A. Lee, sold Christie’s, NY, 19th April 2001, lot 148, USD 446,000
(4) The example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Accession No. 64.101.1142)
(5) The example sold anonymously Sotheby’s, New York, 25th April 1981, lot 154
The group discussed by Wood is anchored by the documented commode supplied by Cobb to James West for Alscot Park in 1766 for £16 and comprises other sub-sets, including one of commodes with female term mounts and cloven hoof feet (see No. 23).
The present commode and the sub-set of which it is part relate to these closely in terms of overall curvilinear form, apron carving and mounted ormolu handles, escutcheons and pelta-shaped profiles.
c. 1730 - 40
England, London. Gilded wood, marble.
Provenance: Acquired by Anthony Boyden in the 1960s or 1970s for Dewlish House, Dorset
H: 79.7 W: 124.2 D: 64.2 cm
The design of the present table is almost certainly the work of William Kent. This combination in this manner of scrolled S-schaped supports, acanthus, fish scales and disc-type decoration in England is unique to him, and derived from Roman baroque furniture which he studied during his time in Italy between 1709 and 1719.1
This precise design can be seen on his table and seat furniture for Chiswick House, Hampton Court Palace and Devonshire House, with closely related designs elsehwere. Carved fish scales, Kent’s trademark, was derived directly from Italian models, although more from Italian silver than Italian furniture.2
A possible author of the present table is cabinet-maker Benjamin Goodison, who collaborately extensively with Kent on many of his most important projects. The table is nearly identical to a console supplied to Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-51), in 1732-3 for £3.10s. 0d. (RCIN 1195) with which Goodison is associated. Although this table is not connected to a specific bill,
1: Console table in the Royal Collection attributed to Goodison, for the Prince of Wales, c. 1732-3, RCIN 1195
the Wardrobe accounts note that Goodison supplied furniture to Windsor, Kew, Kensington and St. James’s Palace and he was likely well-known to the royal family through his master James Moore who supplied various console tables to George I in the 1720s.3
The Royal table features the same frieze carved with foliage and fluting and scrolled legs with a large acanthus leaf, discs and distinctive block feet. Constructed in walnut, oak and pine it was almost certainly intended for use in the private apartments of George II or Frederick, Prince of Wales, as more expensive and prized gilded and marbled pieces such as the present example will have been on view in the State Rooms.
1 Susan Weber, William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain (Yale: 2013), pp. 455-6, fig. 17.12
2 Ibid., p. 60, fig. 17:21; pp. 480-7, figs. 18.16, 23, 25; p. 503, fig. 18.48
3 Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Wolf Burchard, The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760 (London: 2014)
Fig. 2: Detail of console table showing vegetal and fluted frieze and the scrolled leg with acanthus and discs, RCIN 1195
Fig.
WINDOW SEAT
c. 1760 England, London. Mahogany, modern damask upholstery.
H: 66 W: 122 D: 46 cm
Provenance: The Arthur Vernay Collection, New York
This window seat is a highly interesting expression of the synthesis of the exotic aestethic influences current in mid-eighteenth-century England.
It is a rare design, with gothic clustered legs resembling Tuscan colums or even Chinese bamboo. These are joined by C-scroll brackets to the similarly turned rails with collars carved with fronds, paterae and further C-scrolls. The legs have collars and block feet with Vitruvian decoration and fish scales, two Neo-Palladian references that add further complexity to this otherwise very modish design.
c. 1740 - 50 Ireland. Mahogany.
H: 76 W: 129 D: 59 cm
It is a theme of the finest examples of Irish mahogany furniture to feature a central motif, usually a shell or the mask of a fantastical beast. The depiction here of a female mask, likely of Venus, is particularly rare and can possibly be related to themes developed in the furniture of the English Palladian interior.
The table makes further classical reference with hairy clawed paw feet which evoke Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and revelry, who was often depicted riding wild cats in relief carvings and other iconography.
The carving on the knees of the table is also noteworthy. The scrolls and the angular shape of the strapwork joining them resembles Jacobean designs of nearly one hundred and fifty years earlier.
The table is refined with a moulded top and a shaped cockbeaded frieze continuing to the sides which is possibly unusual in the absence of any punching or decoration to the ground. Both the font and back legs are hipped and carved, in addition to scrolls and strapwork, with traditional Irish imagery of shells and leaves.
PAIR OF GLOBES
1816
England, London. Mahogany, paper, brass.
H: 64 D: 39 cm
This pair of finely drawn and hand-coloured globes stand on turned mahogany stems and a tripod bases of cabriole legs incorporated a compass.
The terrestrial globe with a cartouche printed: CARY’S NEW TERRESTRIAL GLOBE DELINEATED From the best Authorities extant; Exhibiting the different Tracks of CAPTAIN COOK and the New Discoveries made by him and other circumnavigators. Made and sold by J & W CARY Strand Septr.2d 1816 LONDON.
The celestial globe also with a cartouche printed: CARY’S NEW CELESTIAL GLOBE ON WHICH are correctly laid down upwards of 3500 Stars Selected from the most accurate observations and calculated for the Year 1800. With the extent of each Constellation precisely defined By Mr Gilpin of the ROYAL SOCIETY Made and sold by J & W Cary Strand London Jan 1816.
Brothers John and William Cary enjoyed considerable prestige during as one of the preeminent makers of maps and globes the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
During his career, John published many maps and atlases which became standard reference works in their time. In 1794 he was commissioned by the Postmaster General to survey England’s roads, producing his important New Itinerary of 1798.
38. MIRROR
c. 1755 - 65
England, London. Gilded wood, glass.
H: 154.9 W: 72.4 cm
Provenance:
Charles Lumb & Sons Ltd.
Jeremy Ltd.
Superbly carved, this mirror is particularly well documented.1 The rustic, carved vines creeping the sides evokes the work of Matthias Lock and Thomas Johnson.2
1 The mirror is illustrated in (1) H. Schiffer, The Mirror Book: English, American, and European (Pennsylvania, 1997), p. 112, fig. 257; (2) F. L. Hinkley, Queen Anne and Georgian Looking Glasses: Old English and Early American (London, 1987), p. 176, fig. 211; and (3) The Grosvenor House Antiques Dealers’ Fair Handbook (1958), p. 58
2 See M. Lock and H. Copland, A New Book of Ornaments (1752); Thomas Johnson, Twelve Girandoles (1755)and Collection of Designs (1758)
39. WINE COOLER
c. 1790 England. Mahogany, lead, brass.
H: 26 W: 38.1 D: 24.1 cm
c. 1775 - 85
England, London. Mahogany, satinwood, stained wood, paint.
H: 217.3 W: 105.5 D: 67.2 cm
The neoclassical style of this corner cupboard is furthered by its architectural design. It features all the elements that a new building of the period might, with fluted pilasters, a dentilled cornice and a broken pediment centering a plinth for a bust or urn. In stylistic harmony, the frieze is inlaid with box-strung oval roundels, the central oval boasting the Prince of Wales’ feathers.
The sense of order is achieved by the tall proportions and panel mouldings on the doors. The front is dressed in flame-figured mahogany veneers, well matched and characteristic of this period in England, and lending the piece occasion and drama.
The lightness and elegance synonymous with this period are reflected in the interior of the cabinet which is blue-painted, the colour, reminiscent of an Adam scheme, surviving in a superb state of originality and symbolising of a new age in interior decoration which emphasised comfort and a sense of casualness alongside strict use of ornamentation.
The interior shelves are gently shaped and joined by Chinese trellace work, a slight hang over perhaps from a previous style but which lends a similar casual cheerful-
ness and light elegance. The drawers are also fronted in mahogany, though of a lesser grade, revealing the work of the cabinet-maker in saving the better quality, more expensive ‘showwoods’ for the exterior.
A similar design for a standing corner cupboard with a broken pediment, fluted pilasters and panelled doors was penned by Gillows in 1787.1
1 Gillow Furniture Designs 1760 - 1800, ed. Lindsay Boynton (1995), fig. 173
Fig. 1: Gillow design of 1787 for a standing corner cupdoard of the same model as the preset example, illus. Gillow Furniture Designs 1760 - 1800, ed. Lindsay Boynton (1995), fig. 173
Fig. 2: Detail of the interior of the corner cupboard, showing the original blue paint, the Chinese trellace work, drawers and wide candle slide
c. 1765 - 70
England, London.
Laburnum, Brazilian rosewood, fustic, amaranth parquetry and marquetry on oak, marble and ormolu.
H: 93 W: 157 D: 63 cm
Provenance: Temple Williams Ltd., 1958
Frank Partridge Ltd., before 1968
The Collection of Lord and Lady Weinstock at Bowden Park, Wiltshire, England
Commodes executed in the French taste - with serpentine lines, abundant carving and ormolu mounts - were highly popular in England during the 1750s and 60s. Yet leading cabinet-makers at this time did not produce furniture with marquetry. As far as is known from datable furniture, Chippendale, like other English makers, did not adopt marquetry until about 1770.
The fine naturalistic floral marquetry of this commode made slightly before this date points therefore to the hand of Pierre Langlois, a London-born craftsman of Huguenot descent. It is of a type that, new in Paris in 1750, he introduced into England during the 1760s and became famous for. The Seven Years’ War of 1756-63 greatly affected the import of styles from France with the result that Langlois, who trained in Paris in the 1740s in the workshop of Jean-François Oeben, established this style of marquetry in the late 1750s and early 1760s in England with little competition from France or English cabinet-makers. 1
Examples of pre circa 1770 floral marquetry furniture attributable to English makers do survive, but they differ in significant ways from Langlois’ work. The 1759-1763 flower and ribbon marquetry bureau en pente at Chewton House, Somerset, for example, features designs inlaid on a light-coloured ground as contrasted to the scorching, strong tonal contrasts and mahogany or rosewood ground which characterise Langlois’ work, as seen on the present commode which features a dark rosewood ground. 2
Similarly, a hallmark of Langlois’ work is the use of diagonal linear striping to form pronounced geometric patterns on the front, sides and top (when of wood) to
form the ground for or frame panels of marquetry, as exemplified by this commode.
The marquetry motifs themselves also suggest Langlois. Langlois had a penchant (unlikely to be felt by an English maker) for placing fleur-de-lys at the corners of his marquetry panels. This is a feature of nearly all his work, absent only on articles whose plain style does not permit decoration, and duly the flowers are present in the four corners of the panels on the sides of this commode, as well as on the drawer fronts beneath the escutcheons.
The commode’s pronounced ormolu scroll toe mounts closely resemble those on Langlois’ documented commodes produced for the Duke of Bedford for Woburn Abbey in 1760 and the Earl of Coventry for Croome Court in 1764, and his attributed work for Sir Lawrence Dundas and John Chute and in the Royal Collection. Its curvilinear form, likely introduced to England by Langlois, evokes the shape of these commodes and with its curved back-edge is French in character and unlike the straight vertical edge usually found on English furniture.
Combining both Rococo and Neoclassical elements, the commode was likely made during the period of stylistic transition between 1765 and 1770. Indeed, Svend Eriksen has commented that the degree, which is more significant than in the present example, of Neoclassicism in the commode, signed Daniel Langlois (Pierre’s son), in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the pair at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, suggests a date of no earlier than 1770, supporting a date of 1765-70 commode which is more rococo in design.
The commode is also finished with a black-washed double-panelled back typical of Langlois’ cabinet-making and the interior work too is characteristically neat. The top, being of marble rather than wood, also implies Langlois, the idea of a marble, rather than wooden top, being an entirely French concept and not a design English cabinet-makers executed or evidently considered in the 1760s.
The top is especially spectacular. The serpentine white marble is inlaid with bands of Spanish brocatelle and anthemia and floral roundels of giallo, rouge griotte and vert de mer.
The present commode has been profusely illustrated.3
1 For Langlois’ background, see Wood, L., ‘New Light on Pierre Langlois (1718-67)’, The Furniture History Society Newsletter, No. 196, Nov. 2014
2 For more on Langlois oeuvre, see Thornton, P. & Rieder, W., ‘Pierre Langlois, Ébéniste. Parts 1-5’, The Connoisseur, December 1971, pp. 283-88; February 1972, pp. 105-12; March 1972, pp. 176-87; April 1972, pp. 260-62, fig. 15; May 1972, pp. 30-35; and Rieder, W., ‘More on Pierre Langlois’, The Connoisseur, September 1974, pp. 11-13
3 See Coleridge, A., Chippendale Furniture (London: 1968), p. 35, pl. 47; F. Davis, ‘A Page for Collectors: A Forgotten English Cabinet-Maker’, Illustrated London News, 3rd Jan. 1959; E. T. Joy, ‘The Serpentine Line of Grace’, The Connoisseur, Antique Dealers Fair Souvenir Ed., 1959, pp. 72-74; Temple Williams Limited Antiques, Advertisement, Country Life, 4th Dec. 1958; Temple Williams LTD, The Grosvenor House Handbook (London, 1959), p. 96
c. 1740 - 50 England. Mahogany, brass.
H: 85 W: 38 D: 21 cm
Supposed to have been made as apprentice pieces, this miniature is especially rare, being of a bureau-bookcase. The fine dentilling in the cornice and pediment and unusually high grade of the mahogany suggest, however, that this piece was not made to prove the skill of a young cabinet-maker, but as a fine quality item in its own right either for a child or for a patron, possibly as an amusing companion to his fullsize version.
Interestingly, the mouldings on the cabinet doors compare with a number of cabinets bearing the paper trade label of Giles Grendey.1
1 C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked Furniture 1700-1840 (Leeds, 1996), p. 241, fig. 433
43. PAIR OF STOOLS
c. 1760 - 70 England. Mahogany.
H: 47 W: 55.9 D: 40.6 cm
c. 1740 - 50 England. Mahogany.
H: 73 W: 178 D: 157 cm
MIRROR
c. 1725 - 40 England, London. Carved and gilded gesso on wood, glass.
H: 113 W: 76 cm
46. PAIR OF STOOLS
c. 1740 - 50
England, London. Mahogany, modern damask upholstery.
H: 43 W: 66 D: 52 cm
DESK
England, London. Mahogany, leather, brass, recessed castors.
c. 1765
H: 75.7 W: 147.2 D: 91.1 cm
PAIR OF CHAIRS
c. 1770
England, London.
Gilded wood, modern velvet upholstery.
H: 100 W: 70 D: 70 cm
Provenance:
Private Collection: Wiltshire, UK
The present chairs relate closely to the suite of seat furniture made for George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax (d. 1771) for Stansted Park, Sussex, attributed to John Linnell.1 A chair from the suite is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (W.42-1946) (Fig. 1). Five chairs and a settee are in 10 Downing Street, London.
Two pairs sold from a private collection in Christie’s in 2013 (USD 55,875; 85,875) in addition to a further three in 2010 (USD 80,500; 98,500; 182,500).
The attribution is based on the pen and ink and watercolour design, also in the V&A, of c. 1768-70 by John Linnell (E.78-1929) (Fig. 2).
The present chairs are evidently part of a larger suite and articles from this have appeared on the market in recent years, including a set of four armchairs which sold in Christie’s in 2017 (USD $162,500).3
The chairs are Neoclassical in style. The swags to the tops of the legs, carved with impressive fluency, emulate fashionable Louis XVI furniture. They were also utilised by Linnell in ormolu, on games tables supplied to Alnwick Castle and Kedleston Hall.4 Similarly, the fluting of the seat-rails and husk carving is mirrored in the marquetry designs found on Linnell’s case furniture of this period.
1 H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, Vol. II (London, 1980), p. 44, figs. 84-5
3 Christie’s, New York, 24 Oct 2017, Lot 58
4 Hayward & Kirkham (1980), pp. 141-3, figs. 279-81
Fig. 1: The chair from the Stansted Park suite in the V&A (W.42-1946) attributed to John Linnell
Fig. 2: The pen and ink and watercolour design in the V&A (E.78-1929) by John Linnell
COFFER-ON-STAND
c. 1720 England. Walnut on deal and oak, brass.
H: 86.4 W: 117.5 D: 56.5 cm
50. SETTEE
c. 1755 - 60 England, London. Carved mahogany, modern damask upholstery.
Provenance: Private Collection: London, UK
H: 99.2 W: 214 D: 72.5 cm
Fig. 1: Detail of the carved front rail and legs of the settee, showing the cabochons between c-scrolls, the fluted legs with scrolled toes and the central shell and acanthus leaves.
The cabochon enclosed by c-scrolls heading the cabriole leg is characteristic of a large proportion of the seat furniture associated with Paul Saunders. It appears on the set of ‘12 chairs, mahog. frames / Gilt’ and ‘10 Elbow / chairs with carved and gilt / frames’ supplied in 1757 to the 1st Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall, for which ‘Mr. Saunders’ on 11th June charged £39. 10s. 3d. and £41. 18s., and notably on the ‘2 large sophas’ in the Gallery, which he supplied for £74. 4d.1
The leg pattern appears on the suite of at least eight armchairs and two settees supplied to the 3rd Viscount Weymouth for Longleat, almost certainly included in the unspecified payments to Saunders of £556. 15s. in November 1757 and £300 in November 1759 recorded in the viscount’s Drummonds account.2 These likely also covered the library table, en suite to the seat furniture, which is likewise carved with cabochons between c-scrolls.
The motif is even represented on the famous suite of parcel-gilt seat furniture supplied to Grimsthorpe Castle. Elements of this remain at the house, and dispersed articles have taken their places in the collections of Irwin Untermyer and Ann and Gordon Getty and have been extensively documented.3
The triple fluting of the legs and the scrolled toes practically confirm Saunders’ authorship, being features of the above-mentioned suites and others supplied to Holkham and Lowther Castle.4 The shaped apron on serpentine rails carved with a central motif – often a wheatsheaf or shell – flanked by stylised acanthus leaf flourishes is likewise a feature of the Saunders group.5
A settee with identical carved decoration sold Christie’s, Jasper Conran: The Collection Part I, 14 September 2021, lot 176, GBP 93,750. A pair of chairs with the same carving, formerly in the collection of Sir Martyn Beckett, Bt., M.C., sold Sotheby’s, London, 18 November 2008, lot 348, GBP 94,850 and again Sotheby’s, New York, 16 October 2009, lot 135, USD 134,500.
1 A. Coleridge, ‘Some Mid-Georgian Cabinet-Makers at Holkham’, Apollo, February 1964, pp. 122-8; J. Cornforth, Early Georgian Interiors (London, 2004), fig. 453; A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture (London, 1968), fig. 379
2 Christie’s, Furniture, Silver and Porcelain from Longleat (June 2002), lots 338, 340
3 Christie’s, New York, The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection: Volume 3, 22 Oct 2022, lot 380, USD 201,600; Yvonne Hackenbroch, English Furniture – The Irwin Untermyer Collection (1958), pl. 116, fig. 143
4 Coleridge, Apollo, 1964, pp. 122-8
5 Christie’s, London, 27 Nov 2003, lot 100, GBP 128,450 and Christie’s, New York, 30 Nov 2012, lot 380, USD 236,500, c.f. H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1911), vol. II, p. 91, fig. 89 (an armchair from the suite; with C. J. Charles, Esq.) and M. Jourdain and F. Rose, English Furniture, The Georgian Period (1750-1830) (London, 1953), p. 71, fig. 30 (an armchair from the suite with Phillips of Hitchin); Sotheby’s, London, 18 November 2008, lot 328 and New York, 16 October 2009, lot 96
