BY THOMAS CHIPPENDALE, 1765-70

These chairs are designed in the 'French' taste promoted by Thomas Chippendale in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, and relate to a design in the third edition, 1762, pl. XXX. (A third edition of this publication is offered in this sale as lot 174.) They bear close comparison with the suite supplied by Chippendale in 1766 to Sir Lawrence Dundas for the Long Drawing Room at 19 Arlington Street, which comprised ten chairs and three sofas, which was sold by the Marquess of Zetland in the Arlington Street sale, 26 April 1934 and was purchased by Messrs. Harris, who subsequently sold the suite to the Earl and Countess of Rosse for Birr Castle, Ireland. A related suite of French styled seat furniture featuring a similar shell or palm-flower motif on the seat rail was supplied by Chippendale to the actor David Garrick for the Blue Bedroom at Hampton Villa in 1768, a suite subsequently sold from the Property of the Estate of Mary, Viscountess Rothermere, Christie's, New York, 16 April 1994, lots 142 and 143. The pair of bergeres en suite with the side chairs offered here, also formerly in the Gutfreund collection, were sold Christie’s, London, 5 July 2018, lot 4 (£106,250).
These chairs have an eminent twentieth-century provenance having formerly been in the magnificent collection of Albert Edward Harry Mayer Archibald Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery (1882-1974) at Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, and sold in the house sale in May 1977. The 6th Earl was the son of Hannah de Rothschild, the sole heir of Baron Mayer de Rothschild. Mentmore was built between 1852 and 1854 by Baron Mayer, who needed a house near London and with close proximity to other Rothschild homes at Tring, Ascot, Aston Clinton and later Waddesdon and Halton House. The plans for the mansion imitated Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire and were drawn up by the gardener turned architect Joseph Paxton, celebrated for his Crystal Palace, completed a year earlier. Sumptuously furnished with extraordinary works of art in every field, among the most outstanding of their kind anywhere in the world, Lady Eastlake was prompted to comment: 'I do not believe that the Medici were ever so lodged at the height of their glory'. On his death in 1874, Baron Mayer left Mentmore and a fortune of some £2,000,000 to his daughter, Hannah, who became the richest woman in England. Following her marriage to the 5th Earl of Rosebery, the couple added considerably to the collections assembled by her father and it remained intact until the dispersal of the contents in 1977.
Please note a copy of Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, one of the most influential pattern books of the 18th century, will be included as lot 174 in this sale.