Walnut side chair with fan back and cabriole legs.
Identifier
FPF098
Title
Walnut side chair with fan back and cabriole legs.
Date
1735-1745
Description
A walnut side chair with fan back, scrolled crest rail and pierced splat on cabriole legs, with upholstered seat.
Full Description
This fan back chair has a concave crest rail with paper-scrolls at the centre and each corner, above a flared splat with three gothic piercings carved with tassels, flowerheads and lambrequins (drapery). The splat verticals are linked half-way up with paterae and terminate in a ‘shoe’ on the rear seat rail. The stuff-over seat is covered in a 20th century wool fabric. The chair is raised on four cabriole legs, those at the front with shaped ears carved, along with the knees, with grapes and vine leaves and terminating in claw and ball feet; the rear legs are plain and terminate in pad feet.
This is probably an Irish chair, from its proportions and the main features in its style, execution and carving. A similar mahogany triple chair-back settee is in the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin and a related armchair was formerly with Mallett’s (The Knight of Glin, Peill, 2007).
The fan back derives from William Kent’s drawings for flared back chairs and benches of the late 1720s and early 1730s, the earliest documented example being a set of chairs and two settees supplied by John Willis of St. Paul’s Churchyard to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1745. The paper-scrolled crest rail is taken from Italian models adapted by Kent, seen in examples at Badminton House and Houghton Hall. Elements of Kent’s designs achieved widespread popularity, albeit in a diluted form, and the fan-back chair continued to be fashionable through much of the 18th century (Bowett, 2009).
The inclusion of rear cabriole legs as opposed to the more common plain back legs would have incurred additional expense, and shows this is a high quality chair.
This is probably an Irish chair, from its proportions and the main features in its style, execution and carving. A similar mahogany triple chair-back settee is in the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin and a related armchair was formerly with Mallett’s (The Knight of Glin, Peill, 2007).
The fan back derives from William Kent’s drawings for flared back chairs and benches of the late 1720s and early 1730s, the earliest documented example being a set of chairs and two settees supplied by John Willis of St. Paul’s Churchyard to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1745. The paper-scrolled crest rail is taken from Italian models adapted by Kent, seen in examples at Badminton House and Houghton Hall. Elements of Kent’s designs achieved widespread popularity, albeit in a diluted form, and the fan-back chair continued to be fashionable through much of the 18th century (Bowett, 2009).
The inclusion of rear cabriole legs as opposed to the more common plain back legs would have incurred additional expense, and shows this is a high quality chair.
Condition
The scrolls in the crest rail have been replaced.
There are repairs to the back posts showing the chair once had arms, which would also have been fixed to the seat rail, although the seat rails are now replaced.
Three seat rails and the shoe are replaced.
The feet are cut down.
Upholstery is 20th century.
There are repairs to the back posts showing the chair once had arms, which would also have been fixed to the seat rail, although the seat rails are now replaced.
Three seat rails and the shoe are replaced.
The feet are cut down.
Upholstery is 20th century.
Materials
Walnut.
Upholstery.
Upholstery.
Physical Dimensions
H. 97
W. 61
D. 64
W. 61
D. 64
Parker Numbers
4398. 4974. OM 5995. See Frederick Parker Archive, Box 55, Ms. FPA050, page 124.
Provenance
Purchased by Frederick Parker & Sons from Cecil Millar for £24.20.0.
Notes
The Knight of Glin, J. Peill, Irish Furniture, Yale, 2007, p. 209, figs. 18-19.
Adam Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Antique Collectors' Club, 2009, pp. 196-197.
See also Lucy Wood, Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Yale, 2009, p. 360, figs. 230-235 for details of a similar set of chairs at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, attributed to William Hallett, 1740; and another set possibly by Hallett, supplied to Sir Jacob de Bouverie in 1737.
Similar chair backs can be seen in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture: From Gothic to Sheraton, 1968, reprint, 2nd Ed, pp. 197, 274.
A chair of this model with virtually identical chair back but mahogany and with alternative carving on the knees was sold in ‘Little Cassiobury: The Collection of Susan Lyall’, Christie’s New York, 16 January 2019, lot 148
Adam Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Antique Collectors' Club, 2009, pp. 196-197.
See also Lucy Wood, Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Yale, 2009, p. 360, figs. 230-235 for details of a similar set of chairs at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, attributed to William Hallett, 1740; and another set possibly by Hallett, supplied to Sir Jacob de Bouverie in 1737.
Similar chair backs can be seen in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture: From Gothic to Sheraton, 1968, reprint, 2nd Ed, pp. 197, 274.
A chair of this model with virtually identical chair back but mahogany and with alternative carving on the knees was sold in ‘Little Cassiobury: The Collection of Susan Lyall’, Christie’s New York, 16 January 2019, lot 148
