A Matched Pair of George III White-Painted and Parcel-Gilt Armchairs

One Attributed to Thomas Chippendale, Circa 1775; The Other Possibly Supplied in the Early 19th Century

with minor differences in scale, carving and construction; redecorated.
Height of larger 38 1/4 x 28 inches.

This lot is located in Chicago.

Provenance:

Hotspur Ltd., London, 15 August 1990 (with invoice)

Note:

The design of this pair of armchairs presents another variation of Chippendale’s repertoire of Neoclassical ornament for chairs produced in the 1770s which are considered to be among the most expressive of his oeuvre. Their ‘French’ form is clearly evident with their guilloche-carved backs, laurel leaf-carved frames and the vertical cross strut on the back of one chair. Although they are almost identical to the other pair of chairs in the Krehbiel collection (Lot 57), differences in the treatment at the tops of the legs as well as the scale and handling of both the carved medallions and the borders on the backs and seatrails indicate they were a separate commission.

Moreover, the differences in the carving, construction and scale between the two present chairs may indicate the larger chair was supplied afterwards; the side chairs in the set attributed to Chippendale supplied to the Duke of Gloucester are one documented example (RCIN 100201, 100202) of Chippendale enlarging an earlier commission. The set of seat furniture supplied to Sir Penistone Lamb for the Saloon at Brocket Hall is the most closely related documented example to the present lot (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Vol. II, London, 1978, p. 109, fig. 186) but the guilloche border and medallion back is also seen on the set for the Saloon at Nostell Priory around 1778 (Ibid., p. 108, fig. 184).