Beschreibung:

A pair of Irish George III mahogany side chairs, circa 1740, each shaped rectangular back above a tapering overstuffed seat, on cabriole legs carved with Gothic arch and trellis detail, on carved hairy paw feet, each 102cm high, 58cm wide, 62cm deep As early examples of the Gothic revival in mid 18th century furniture design, this pair of chairs relate to the picturesque and eclectic George II 'Modern' style of Thomas Chippendale's, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (1754) and was invented in 1754 by the connoisseur, antiquarian and author, Horace Walpole later 4th Earl of Orford (d. 1797) for his villa at Strawberry Hill. Walpole's designs were executed by the St. Martin's lane cabinet-maker William Hallett (d.1781). They matched the ecclesiastical architecture, as well as the sideboard-table and other furnishings of Walpole's Great Parlour or Refectory, in the castellated Library extension of his Strawberry Hill villa at Twickenham. The mediaeval gothic frets, in part derived from B. Langley's, Gothic Architecture improved by Rules (1747), were perhaps intended to pay homage his ancestor Ralph de Walpole, Bishop of Ely (d.1302). Whilst making a number of references to English sources for the design influence of these chairs, the feet in particular relate very closely to Irish examples of the period. See The Knight of Glin and James Peill, Irish Furniture, Yale University Press, 2007, pages 109 onwards. Condition report disclaimer