Footnotes

• Watercolour illustrations executed by Charles Wild and James Stephanoff in W.H. Pyne's Royal Residences, 1819, show that stools of this pattern were used to refurnish the King's Apartments at Windsor Castle, in the 1780s and 1790s, as part of an overall furniture scheme which included neo-classical plasterwork, chimney- piece and other pieces of furniture such as chairs, ottomans and foot stools. They appear throughout the King's suite of rooms including the King's Closet, King's State Bedchamber, King's Drawing Room, King's Eating Room and Audience Chamber (inventory no's 20625 and 20463), where the furniture was additionally gilded and the friezes fluted. This pattern of stool is recorded both with both plain and fluted legs.
  
  The rectangular form with square, tapered and fluted legs, paterae decoration to the terminating blocks and deep frieze are features typical of the neo-classical style introduced by Robert Adam from the late 1760s. The design of the stools is derived from larger Adam neo-classical pieces such as the Kenwood House sideboard, illustrated in Robert and James Adams' hugely influential Works in Architecture, 1774 (plate VIII, vol. I, no. II). Intended to stand against the wall as parade furniture between larger pieces such stools were often to be found located in the drawing room or hall. Adam supplied similar sets of stools, often actually made for Adam by Chippendale, as part of the overall furnishing scheme for several of his country house and interior redecoration projects, such as Mersham-le-Hatch, 1767, Harewood House, 1773 and Moor Park, 1776. Adam's design were widely imitated and similar designs for side tables and pier tables appear in the London Cabinet Makers Book of Prices, 1788 and Hepplewhite's Cabinet Maker's and Upholsterers Guide of 1788. Though none of these later promoters of the neo-classical taste are as similar in form and decoration as Adam's original designs for stools. The advanced and offset corner blocks are rare in the design of stools, though not in chairs, of the period, as is the use of paired reversed guttae ( part of the Doric order) for the decoration of the feet.
  
  Literature: H. Roberts, A Neoclassical Episode at Windsor, Furniture History 1997, p. 177-187; D. Watkin, The Royal Residences of Regency England, 1984; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert and James Adam, 1990;
  
  A pair of stools of this pattern with the fluted leg, one branded 'VR BP N22224 1866' were sold Christie's London, 27 June 1985, lot 119 and were subsequently offered Bonham's London, 24th April 2001, lot 58. Another example with a fluted leg was sold Bonhams, London, 7 March 2012, lot 96 and another from the collection of H.R.H The Princess Mary, Princess Royal, Countess of Harewood (1897-1965) at Harewood House and bearing an inventory label for Buckingham Palace was sold Christie's, London, 5 December 2012, lot 597.

---

Category: Furniture / English Furniture and Works of Art

---

Auction terms and conditions