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Lot Essay
The serpentined and flower-festooned parlour chairs, japanned in trompe l'oeil lacquer, are conceived in the whimsical Geroge II fashion fusing Roman and Chinese elements. The poets' concept of the 'Banquets of Gods' is evoked by their 'Jupiter' eagle claws and by bas-relief 'Venus' shells enriching the vase splats of their 'India' (Chinese) backs; as well as the lambrequined seats; and the truss-scrolled and acanthus-wrapped legs. Like contemporary Cantonese lacquered chairs their leather seats are similarly flowered.
Other chairs of this pattern, but with caned seats and backs, include a set of six illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1911, vol. I, p. 203, fig. 211. The name of the celebrated Clerkenwell 'Cabinet-Maker and Chair-Maker' Giles Grendey (d. 1780) has also been associated with these chairs. A similar green caned and japanned chair attributed to Grendey was sold, anonymously Sotheby's New York, 25 May 2000, lot 195. Grendey's label of the 1740s has been recorded on a related set of claw-footed and shell-enriched walnut chairs, as well as on chairs from the famed 'Infantado' suite of japanned furniture supplied by Grendey (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, fig. 435).
One from a set of six similar green-japanned chairs formerly at Ormeley Lodge, Surrey; and another six at Chequers are illustrated in M. Harris, The English Chair, pl. 28. Another almost identical chair, but with a caned seat and black ground is in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (H.D. Molseworth and J. Kenworthy-Browne, Three Centuries of English Furniture in Colour, pl. 139).
Other chairs of this pattern, but with caned seats and backs, include a set of six illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1911, vol. I, p. 203, fig. 211. The name of the celebrated Clerkenwell 'Cabinet-Maker and Chair-Maker' Giles Grendey (d. 1780) has also been associated with these chairs. A similar green caned and japanned chair attributed to Grendey was sold, anonymously Sotheby's New York, 25 May 2000, lot 195. Grendey's label of the 1740s has been recorded on a related set of claw-footed and shell-enriched walnut chairs, as well as on chairs from the famed 'Infantado' suite of japanned furniture supplied by Grendey (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, fig. 435).
One from a set of six similar green-japanned chairs formerly at Ormeley Lodge, Surrey; and another six at Chequers are illustrated in M. Harris, The English Chair, pl. 28. Another almost identical chair, but with a caned seat and black ground is in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (H.D. Molseworth and J. Kenworthy-Browne, Three Centuries of English Furniture in Colour, pl. 139).