Royal House Antiques has dated these Chinese Chippendale Dining Chairs to the Georgian era.
Please note the delivery fee listed is just a guide, it covers within the M25 only for the UK and local Europe only for international, if you would like an accurate quote please send me your postcode and I’ll provide you with the exact price
Thomas Chippendale was simply put, the most important furniture designer in history.
A similar suite of twelve chairs with one reproduction that was attributed to Chippendale and of the same Georgian period sold at christies three and a half years ago for a little over £400,000, they weren’t as close to the originals as these examples
The chairs are of the period, with the correct back carving and pagoda tops, the timber is the right age, they are the finest example available anywhere in the world today.
I was tempted to have the chair seats reupholstered in a nice period damask however when a friend and the finest restorer I have ever met cast his eyes over them he informed me the embroidery is very very fine and it would be a crime to remove them
The suite has been sympathetically restored to include a clean and French polished, all the frames have been checked and secured if required, these are perfectly usable examples
Literature
Two chairs illustrated in Tabellenbuch Holztechnik, Hamburg, 2013, p. 271.
Exhibited
Ten chairs on loan to Birmingham Museums circa 1985-2010 and exhibited at Aston Hall, Birmingham, where photographed in situ..
Dimensions
Height:- 103cm
Width:- 54cm
Depth:- 53.5cm
Please note all measurements are taken at the widest point, if you would like any additional or specific measurements please ask
Lot Essay
These chairs are closely related to those in two recognised Chippendale commissions: Sir Gilbert Heathcote (d. 1785), 3rd Baronet for Normanton Hall, Rutland and William Crichton-Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries (4th Earl of Stair, 1699-1768) for Dumfries House, Ayrshire.
THE RELATED CHAIRS
The chairs are of identical decoration to the set of two armchairs and ten single chairs, circa 1765, formerly at Normanton Hall (1). In 1759, Sir Gilbert Heathcote (d. 1785), 3rd Baronet, succeeded to the vast inheritance established by his grandfather, also Gilbert, 1st Baronet (1652-1733), who was reputed to be ‘the richest commoner in England’ (2). The 3rd Baronet employed both Chippendale Senior and his son, Chippendale Junior, in the furnishing of his Palladian mansion, Normanton Hall in Rutland, and his London houses, 29 Grosvenor Square, London and Browne's House at North End, Fulham. Surviving Chippendale accounts, although incomplete, show that the firm was working periodically for members of the Heathcote family from 1768 to 1821. Most of the furniture listed in these accounts was intended for Browne’s House, although after 1798 when the family relinquished this residence some of the furniture was moved to Normanton Hall. The latter was sold in 1924, and any furniture not included in the Normanton Hall sale was taken to the Earl of Ancaster’s seat at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire. Chippendale’s earliest invoice for Sir Gilbert Heathcote records the acquisition in 1768 of ‘6 India Back and arm chairs Japand to imitate the Bamboe’, signifying how the family embraced the highly fashionable chinoiserie taste. Although the Normanton chairs cannot be conclusively identified in the extant Chippendale accounts, their form and ornamentation led Christopher Gilbert to suggest that they were possibly by Chippendale (3).
The set of four mahogany chairs at Dumfries House have nearly-identic
Royal House Antiques has dated these Chinese Chippendale Dining Chairs to the Georgian era.
Royal house antiques is a privately-owned family ran company founded in wimbledon in 2012 by husband and wife james and iris thorpe
You can view the stock and full dealer information on the Royal House Antiques Profile Page
Six Imporatant George III 1760 Thomas Chippendale Chinese Pagoda Dining Chairs
