John Sandon
Consultant
Lot 21TP
A rare and large George III cherry-wood, walnut and elm comb-back Windsor armchair, Thames Valley, circa 1760 In the manner of John Pitt (d.1759) and Richard Hewett (d.1777)
31 January 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £8,125 inc. premium
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A rare and large George III cherry-wood, walnut and elm comb-back Windsor armchair, Thames Valley, circa 1760
In the manner of John Pitt (d.1759) and Richard Hewett (d.1777)
The back with an outer lath and three tapering spindles either side of a plain vasiform splat, with eared stay-rail, the arm bow on further elliptical spindles and flattened in-curved front arm supports, the broad elm saddle-seat on four cabriole legs, united by an elliptical turned H-form stretcher, on pad feet, 63cm wide x 57cm deep x 109.5cm high, (24 1/2in wide x 22in deep x 43in high)
The back with an outer lath and three tapering spindles either side of a plain vasiform splat, with eared stay-rail, the arm bow on further elliptical spindles and flattened in-curved front arm supports, the broad elm saddle-seat on four cabriole legs, united by an elliptical turned H-form stretcher, on pad feet, 63cm wide x 57cm deep x 109.5cm high, (24 1/2in wide x 22in deep x 43in high)
Footnotes
Provenance:
The Yates Family, The George & Dragon Hotel, Much Wenlock, Shropshire
From 20th September 1958, The Roger Warner Collection, Burford, Oxfordshire
Sold Christie's The Roger Warner Collection, 20 & 21 January 2009, Lot 50 (illustrated on the front cover of the sale catalogue)
Probate was granted on the estate of Frederick William Yates, retired 'licensed victualler' of the George (also George & Dragon) of Hospital (also Spittel) Street, Much Wenlock, in September 1958. The first Yates to run the inn was George Yates, from 1834, followed by his daughter Alice from 1850, and then his son George Yates, father of Frederick William, listed in the census of 1871 as 'Innkeeper' there. George ran the pub until 1892 when he was succeeded by his wife Mrs Jane Yates until 1900, when Frederick William took over. When he retired (in 1944) it was run by his son George Yates, and then on his death in 1948, by Imogen Atkinson Yates, his daughter in law. George Yates, when he died, was the oldest resident of Much Wenlock. He had been a bell-ringer and, as such, one of the last people to ring the curfew in Much Wenlock, which was abolished around 1910.
See Thomas Crispin, The English Windsor Chair (1992), p.11, for two related chairs by the highly-regarded chair-makers John Pitt and Richard Hewett. Both men worked in Slough, Berkshire, also as wheelwrights, and fortunately, in terms of historic furniture research, had the good foresight to attach a trade label bearing their name to the underside of their chair's seat. See also Bernard D. Cotton, The English Regional Chair (1990), p. 45, figs, TV14 & TV15, along with the dust jacket illustration and pl. 2 and also The Journal of the Regional Furniture Society (2005), Vol. XIX, pp. 20-32.