A pair of George II mahogany hall chairs

Footnotes

An almost identical pair of hall chairs to the present lot sold Christie's, London, 13th November 2018, The Collector, lot 20. Other closely related examples include; a pair of virtually identical chairs, possibly even from the same set as the above, previously from the collection of the Earls of Guildford; a pair of chairs made for Francis Basset, Esq. (d. 1769) at Tehidy Park, Cornwall (sold Christie's, New York, 18 October 2005, lot 450 and again Christie's, London, 18 June 2008, Simon Sainsbury, "The Creation of an English Arcadia", lot 75); a set of eight supplied to St Giles's House, Dorset (illustrated in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 366); and finally two pairs of chairs from the Rovensky collection sold Sotheby's, New York, 5-6 April 2006, lots 419 and 420.

The offered chairs follow a hall chair design, with a similarly naturalistic carved back, originally published by Matthias Darly (d. 1780) between 1750 and 1751. Evidently, due to the popularity of the form, this drawing was later re-published in the 1766 Chair Maker's Guide by 'Robert Mainwaring Cabinet-Maker and Others', see C. Gilbert, The Early Furniture Designs of Matthias Darly, Furniture History, 1975, p. 37 and pl.'s 39 & 69. In 1753 Chippendale, who was at the time in the process of compiling the first edition of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, (1754), chose Darly, who quipped about himself as being 'Professor of Ornament to the Academy of Great Britain', to engrave ninety-eight of the total one hundred and forty-seven plates to be ultimately included therein. And it seems very likely that Chippendale imitated or rather adapted his own garden seat pattern, plate XXIV in the third edition (1762), directly from Darly's model.

Both designs derive from the Italian Renaissance sgabello chair. Although such hall chairs are often associated with painted grotto chairs since they share a related organic design that, as in this instance, incorporates the scallop-shell form which is representative of the goddess Venus's birth, these hall chairs were never intended to be used outdoors. Hall chairs were usually part of a large set of eight or more intended for the entrance hall and with their coats-of-arms or crests (as in this case) they were as much about dynastic display as for practical use. Chippendale's description of such chairs states: 'They may be made either of Mahogany, of any other Wood, and painted, and have commonly wooden Seats. If the Carving of the Chairs in Plate XVIII was thought superfluous, the Outlines may be preserved, and they will look very well... Arms, if required, may be put to those Chairs'.

Among the numerous families documented as having a cockerel for their crest or charge appear the following surnames: Sinclair, Crow, Rigg, Williams, Cockridge, King, Cox, Allcock and Ingram. However, unfortunately the only distinguishing feature of the particular depiction of a cockerel on the offered lot is that he is armed and most likely represented in his proper tinctures. Nonetheless it has not proven possible to discover which specific historic family commissioned this pair of hall chairs nor in fact to which family these directly relate.