Lot Essay
The use of a provincial timber, Director-inspired design and resemblance to other fret-filled furniture attributed to them, all suggests that these chairs might have been supplied by the Wakefield cabinet-makers who seem to have supplied so much to Wentworth Woodhouse, Wright and Elwick. This form of Chinese-railed chair, with pagoda-swept canopy gadrooned with embossed drops and terminating in scrolled volutes, relates to seats conceived in the mid-18th Century for Chinese garden temples, such as featured in W. and J. Halfpenny's Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste, 1751-2. Related patterns also featured in A New Book of Chinese, Gothic and Modern Chairs, issued in 1750 by Matthias Darly (fl. c.1740-1775), who shared Northumberland Court premises with Thomas Chippendale and engraved the majority of the plates for his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. This set of chairs was commissioned for Wentworth Woodhouse; and their back pattern, with fretted-ribbon tablets tied at the corners and centred by lozenged compartments between paired rails, derives from Chippendale's pattern of 1753 (Plate XXVI). While Chippendale noted that such chairs suited Chinese Temples, he also explained that his 'Designs of chairs after the Chinese manner...are very proper for a lady's Dressing Room, especially if it is hung with India (Chinese) paper. They have commonly caned bottoms with loose cushions'.