BY GILES GRENDEY, CIRCA 1750

Giles Grendey (d.1780) cabinet-maker and chair-maker, established a successful and long-lived business at St John's Square, Clerkenwell around 1720. His output ranged from sober walnut and mahogany pieces devoid of superfluous decoration, to the flamboyant, such as the carved mahogany armchairs supplied circa 1740-45 for Gunton Park, Norfolk (similar chairs are offered in this sale, lot 279) and the spectacular scarlet japanned furniture, totalling some eighty pieces, supplied around 1840 to the Duke of Infantado for Lazcano, near San Sebastian (C.Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, pp. 31-32 and pp. 238-249, figs. 429-452).