Painted beech side chair with caned back and upholstered seat.

FPF204

Painted beech side chair with caned back and upholstered seat.

1780-1800

Painted beech side chair with caned back and upholstered seat.

This painted beech and caned chair is in the neo-classical style made fashionable by the architect-designer, Robert Adam (1728-92) in the late 1770s and early 1780s. The chair has a concave oval caned back with a channel-moulded frame, indented at the bottom. The stuff-over seat is shaped at the sides and serpentine at the front; the side rails are fluted and the front rail is carved with anthemion oval panels in the centre and on the corners. There are cramping slots on the inside of the seat rails, used during assembly. The chair is raised on turned, tapering, fluted front legs with nulling at the tops, terminating in ‘toupie’ feet (toupie is French for a spinning top), and square, flared legs at the back. The seat was originally caned but has been upholstered in the 20th century; the chair has also been re-painted in the 20th century.

This chair with its fluted frame is tentatively attributed to the London cabinet- and chair-making partnership of William Ince (d. 1804) and John Mayhew (1736-1811). A suite of chairs with very similar seat rails and legs was supplied by Ince and Mayhew to Sir Thomas Edwardes (d. 1785) for his house in Portman Square, London (Goodman, 2016).

Ince and Mayhew worked with the architect-designer Robert Adam from as early as 1764 at Coventry House, Piccadilly and Croome Court, Worcestershire, for the 6th Earl of Coventry. The firm appears to have either followed Adam’s designs exactly, for example, the Derby House commode (Roberts, 1985), or created their own interpretations of his designs. Adam chose Ince and Mayhew to supply the furnishings for some of his most fashionable interiors, suggesting a close partnership, probably more so than that between Adam and Chippendale, who was largely independent.

Another set of ten armchairs with similar seat rails and legs, formerly from the Great Drawing Room at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, is now in the collection of the National Trust at Lanhydrock, Cornwall (NT 882801).

The seat was originally caned; the upholstery is 20th century.
The back has been re-caned.
The chair was repainted in the 20th century.

Beech.
Cane.
Upholstery.

H. 94
W. 57
D. 54

8188 or 8818 on a paper label
Note on paper sheet: ‘New purchase London GH-U’.
OM 6039, pattern no. 4388. See Frederick Parker Archive, Box 55, FPA050. Page 134.

Purchased by Frederick Parker & Sons, 20th January 1925 from Chester Street Gallery for £5.

Sharon Goodman, ‘Modesty Prevails: Mayhew & Ince’s Commission for Sir Thomas Edwardes at 17 Edwards Street, Marylebone’, Furniture History, 2016, pp. 111-122.
Four chairs from the Edwardes suite were sold by Christies, London, 9 March 2016, lot 74; 

Mayhew, John and Ince, William (1758-1811) | BIFMO

Hugh Roberts, ‘The Derby House Commode’, The Burlington Magazine, May 1985, pp. 275-283.
For the Wimpole Hall chairs see:
Open armchair 882801| National Trust collections