Georgian Carved Mahogany Armchair

An exceptional George III Heppelwhite period carved mahogany armchair; the shield back has a pronounced concave curve is filled with five reeded and acanthus carved splats above elegant down-swept arms; having a stuff-over seast which is covered in blue silk and rasied on elegant turned and reeded legs to the front and swept legs to the rear. All of the major surfaces are crisply carved with a guilloche moulding.

Circa 1790

This Heppelwhite armchair is incredibly elegant with its beautifully drawn arms and crisply carved details of guilloche mouldings and anthus leaves. The design of the armchair derives from Plate 9 of George Hepplewhite's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide and the neoclassical details are pleasingly subsumed within its flowing desing.

The armchair forms part of a larger set, since seperated, of at least 8 armchairs which remained together until at least 1928. Examples from the set have featured in various important collections and publications. In The Age of Satinwood Percy Macquoid writes 'This is a chair of great finish, and if designed by Hepplewhite, unusually perfect in all its proportions, and so good are these that the design is more suggestive of Adam than this maker'. It is also illustrated in Clifford Musgrave's Adam and Hepplewhite Furniture and Musgrave notes this armchair is of unusually high quality.

The armchairs have featured in prominent exhibitions of English Furniture and were exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition in 1928 and at the Victoria and Albert Museum's International Art Treasures Exhibition in 1962.

Various armchairs from the set have occasionly appeared at auction and most recently an armchair sold at Christie's, New York for US$26,400.

Provenance:

Armchairs from the set:

F. Snook Esq. Circa 1908

Francis Mallett, Esq. Circa 1924

J. Rochelle Thomas, 1928 (a set of eight)

Since their seperation armchairs have been recorded in various sales and collections:

One armchair:

Mallett, London, 1950

Noel G. Terry Collection, Fairfax House, York

Second armchair:

Percy Dalton, The Hall, Burley in Wharfedale, Yorkshire

Ayer and Co. (Antiques) Ltd, Bath Circa 1962

Third armchair:

H. Blairman and Sons, London, pre-1968

Four armchairs:

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, 8 October, 1965, Lot 117 £7,280

Pair of armchairs:

Arthur Leidesdorf; 'A Collection of English Furniture, Barometers and Clocks, formed by a Gentleman residing in New York', Christie's, London 27-28 June, 1974, Lot 147 £4,700

Partridge, London, 1994 (illustrated in Recent Acquisitions, 1994 No. 16 pp44-45)

Another armchair:

Partridge, London, 2001 (illustrated in English Furniture and Works of Art, 2001 No. 39 pp94-95)

Another armchair:

Christie's, New York, 27 October, 2006 Lot 99 US$26,400

Literature:

Percy Macquoid (1908) A History of English Furniture: The Age of Satinwood p. 188

Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards (1924) The Dictionary of English Furniture Vol 1 p. 253 fig 142

Clifford Musgrave (1966) Adam and Hepplewhite Furniture, pl. 78

The Noel Terry Collection of Furniture and Clocks (1987) No. 68 p. 68