A PAIR OF GEORGE II MAHOGANY GROTTO OPEN ARMCHAIRS, each with a pierced shell-back centred by an armorial cartouche with paper-scroll terminals to the back, the out-scrolled arms on spreading supports and solid shell-shaped seat, on cabriole front legs joined by a panelled apron carved with a central shell and rockwork, the raked back legs joined by a shaped H-shaped stretcher, one chair with printed label of an old catalogue description A PAIR OF CHIPPENDALE MAHOGANY HALL ARMCHAIRS... (2)

细节
A PAIR OF GEORGE II MAHOGANY GROTTO OPEN ARMCHAIRS, each with a pierced shell-back centred by an armorial cartouche with paper-scroll terminals to the back, the out-scrolled arms on spreading supports and solid shell-shaped seat, on cabriole front legs joined by a panelled apron carved with a central shell and rockwork, the raked back legs joined by a shaped H-shaped stretcher, one chair with printed label of an old catalogue description A PAIR OF CHIPPENDALE MAHOGANY HALL ARMCHAIRS... (2)
来源
Made for the Basset family of Tehidy Park, Cornwall

拍品专文

The old catalogue label includes a footnote - "The arms are those of Basset quartering Pendarves and impaling St Aubyn, for Francis Basset of Tehidy, M.P. for Penryn, second son of Francis Basset and his second wife Mary daughter and heiress of John Pendarves Rector of Dunsteighton (sic.), Devon, who married in 1756 Margaret daughter of Sir John St Aubyn, Bart., of Clowance". The eldest son of Francis Basset and Margaret St Aubyn, also named Francis, was created Lord de Dunstanville in 1796. The peerage died with him in 1835.

Tehidy Park was built in 1736 for J.P. Basset. The house was enlarged and altered in 1861 and largely demolished after a fire in 1919. The pictures were sold in these Rooms by A.F. Basset, Esq., 9 January 1920 and a quantity of porcelain by R.L. Basset, Esq., 1 January 1954. No trace of any furniture sold in these Rooms has been found.

A pair of settees and four chairs of this model were sold anonymously as one lot, Sotheby's London, 2 April 1971, lot 42. It is clear that the present lot must have been split off from the larger suite before that time since the old catalogue label predates 1971. A further pair of chairs which may or may not have been part of the 1971 six was sold anonymously, Sotheby's New York, 20 October 1984, lot 209.

This spectacular model of hall chair derives from a design in the third edition of Thomas Chippendale's, Director, 1762, pl. 17a. The design relates closely to a set of eight hall chairs supplied to St Giles' House, Dorset, which are illustrated in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, pl. 366