CIRCA 1740, IN THE MANNER OF WILLIAM HALLETT, PROBABLY ADAPTED

These George II armchairs, originally part of a larger suite comprising a second pair of armchairs and possibly a sofa, were at Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, from at least 1949, when one of the armchairs was photographed in the Small Sitting Room (Historic England, 4521/16). One of England’s foremost Baroque mansions, Easton Neston was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (c. 1661-1736) in 1699, who described it thus: ‘I had the honor to be concerned in ye body of ye house, it is beautifully and strongly built with durable stone... One can hardly avoy’d loveing ones owne children’ (J. Musson, ‘Easton Neston: Hawksmoor’s Beloved Child’, Country Life, 27 May 2004, p. 128). The house was ‘one of England’s great, and most private, landed estates’ and home to the Fermor Hesketh family for 470 years until put up for sale in 2004 (P. Churchill, ‘Changing the Guard at Easton Neston’, Country Life, 27 May 2004, p. 126).

The armchairs offered here may not have been originally for Easton Neston - they do not appear in the 1927 inventory suggesting they possibly may have originally been at Rufford Old Hall, the other Hesketh seat. Interestingly, Henrietta Louisa Fermor, Countess of Pomfret (1698-1761), who lived at Easton Neston until 1753, and thereafter moved to the ‘Gothick’ Pomfret Castle, 18 Arlington Street, London (built in 1755-57), is known to have patronised the London cabinet-maker William Hallett Snr. (active c. 1735-mid 1750s) of Great Newport Street, Long Acre. On 6 April 1752, she records in her diary of going ‘to Mr Wright the Bankers, then to Mr Hallett the Cabinet-Makers’ (S. House, ‘Antiquarian Inclinations: Diaries of the Countess of Pomfret – II’, Country Life, 31 March 1977, p. 802). Hallett has been proposed as the maker of the celebrated ‘Pomfret Cabinet’, c. 1755, sold Easton Neston, Sotheby’s house sale, 17-19 May 2005, lot 103.

The overall form of these armchairs is closely related to an armchair from the Capel Cure collection, illustrated in R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Woodbridge, revised edition 1954, vol. I, p. 264, fig. 119. The armchairs can be compared to a set of eighteen carved walnut chairs supplied by William Hallett in 1735 at a cost of 23s each to Arthur Ingram, 7th Viscount Irwin; the chairs were made for a London house originally but sent to Temple Newsam, Leeds, in 1736, where they are in situ today (A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture: 1715-1740, Woodbridge, 2009, p. 176, plate 4:64). The Temple Newsam suite was illustrated along with the original invoice in C. Gilbert, ‘Newly-Discovered Furniture by William Hallett’, The Connoisseur, December 1964, pp. 224-225. The present armchairs similarly feature the distinctive front legs carved to the knees with scallop shells above acanthus flanked by ‘frill’ C-scroll motifs – ornamentation often found on seat-furniture attributed to Hallett. Related carved decoration is found on a suite of seat-furniture attributed to Hallett from Hanbury Hall, photographed in the Hall in 1916 (H. Avray Tipping, ‘Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire: The Seat of Sir H. Foley Vernon, Bart.’, Country Life, 22 April 1916, p. 506, fig. 7). A single armchair from the Hanbury Hall suite sold Christie’s, London, 15 April 1999, lot 58 (£13,800 inc. premium).

A pair of library armchairs with very similar decoration was sold at Christie's, London 3 July 1997, lot 31. A settee displaying a related form of leg was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 15 November 1996, lot 29. Another walnut settee attributed to Hallett was sold at Christie’s, London, 1 July 2004, lot 26 (£59,750 inc. premium).