CIRCA 1790, ATTRIBUTED TO GILLOWS, AFTER THE DESIGN BY WYATT

The design of this 'Waiet chair' was the second Wyatt pattern adopted by the London and Lancaster cabinet-makers Gillows. It was illustrated in the Journeymen's Price Agreement 1785 and had become the widely accepted form of Wyatt chair by the 1780s (S. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London, 1730-1840, vol. I, Woodbridge, 2008, pp. 134 and 158-9, pl. 111), being of more elegant proportions than the first version produced in 1774. A virtually identical 'compass-seat' chair upholstered in close-studded needlework is in the Henry du Pont Library & Museum, Winterthur, Delaware (ibid, pl. 110).