Michael Pashby Antiques http://www.michaelpashbyantiques.com/shop/seating/an-exceptional-pair-of-regency-grecian-hall-chairs-after-a-design-by-thomas-sheraton-c-1805/ Export date: Thu May 9 8:28:26 2024 / +0000 GMT |
An Exceptional Pair of Regency “Grecian Hall Chairs” After a Design by Thomas Sheraton c.1805Inventory Number: : 230-134 Price: SOLD 19 1/4 ins wide, 15 ins deep and 35 3/4 ins high For more information please contact us TELEPHONE. 917 414 1827 EMAIL. [email protected] www.michaelpashbyantiques.com © Michael Pashby Antiques.
DESCRIPTIONProvenance Most likely with Phillips of Hitchin in 1984 Literature A pair of chairs of this model, probably the present pair, illustrated in Country Life, 17th of May 1984 with Phillips of Hitchin These exceptional chairs are very much in the taste championed by a small group of connoisseurs whose figurehead was the Prince Regent, later George IV. The architect and designer Charles Tatham popularised the “x-frame” or curule style of chair with his publication Etchings of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, published in 1799, which included illustrations of 'Antique Seats executed in Bronze from the Collection in the Museum at Portici' (illustrated in a composite image below) These designs in turn influenced the great furniture designers of the time and it was Thomas Sheraton in his 1803 Cabinet Dictionary who provided the design from which the present chairs are taken. Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary plate 51, later hand altered in some editions to plate 53, with the design for the present chairs on the right
This is a particularly successful design-the combination of carved detail, unusually sinuous lines for the period and fine brass lion's head mounts is an arresting one. Hall chairs were designed, as Sheraton himself states in the same publication, to be as much a statement of wealth and taste as they were as practical pieces as they were only sat upon by visiting tradesmen and servants-higher-bred visitors would have been shown directly in to the drawing room of a house. These chairs would have made the perfect impression, conveying the wealth and fashionable taste of their first owners. Surviving examples of this model are very rare indeed and it is possible that only two pairs survive. One pair were sold at Christie's New York in 2002. A pair of the same model had previously been illustrated by another great dealer, Jerome Phillips of Phillips of Hitchin Ltd, in an advert in Country Life in 1984. It is highly likely that this is the same pair of chairs but it has not been possible to confirm by close comparison of the images whether this is definitely the case. In any event, our pair were supplied to the previous owners by the important dealers Jeremy Ltd of London-one of a small number of dealers who helped to pioneer the taste for regency furniture in the early to mid 20th century in London. a pair of chairs of the same model likely to be the same pair, advertised in Country Life in 1984
The chairs retain an excellent colour and patination. https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/514610 1
Research and essay by Christopher Coles.
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