Footnotes

• The above open armchair forms part of a very small group of armchairs which include; a closely related armchair sold Christie's London, The Samuel Messer Collection of English Furniture, Clocks and Barometers, 5 December 1991, lot 58, another armchair from the Colonel H.H Ackroyd Will Trust, sold Christie's London, 8 June 2006, lot 5 and another sold anonymously at Christie's New York, 7 April 2006, lot 230. A further example now in a private collection was sold through Mallett, London. A pair of armchairs with different pierced backs but of a clearly related pattern formerly in the collection of Sir John Gooch, 12th Bt. were sold at the Sotheby's contents sale of Benacre Hall, Suffolk, 9-11 May 2000, lot 99 and later with Hotspur, London.
  
  The 'folded ribbon splat' is thought to have evolved from the Huguenot ornamentalist William de la Cour's First Book of Ornament, 1741. Elizabeth White suggests in Pictorial Dictionary of British 18th Century Furniture Design, Suffolk 1990, p.59, that these designs played an influential role in the creation of the St. Martin's Lane style of the mid 18th century. The set of twelve dining chairs supplied by John Linnell to Robert Child for Upton House, Oxfordshire in 1760-1761 although of slightly later date feature a related interlaced back (formerly in the collection of Dr. Eric Till and sold Christie's London, 14 June 2001, lot 20).

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Category: Furniture / English Furniture and Works of Art

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