Lot 232
A pair of George II figured walnut side chairs
20 November 2013, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£10,000 - £15,000
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A pair of George II figured walnut side chairs
The scrolling toprails with vase shaped splats above shaped drop-in needlework seats on cabriole legs, with lion masks and scrolls at the knee on hairy paw feet the top faces of the front seat-rails chiseled with the numerals 'XV' and 'X111' (2)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Acquired by the present owner from Michael Norman Antiques, Brighton, 22 September 1988.
Comparative Literature:
Macquoid, 'Sir W.H. Lever's Collection - I.', 1911 pp 635 (ill, 251), 636.
Macquoid, Catalogue (1928), no. 102, pl. 30.
Sparrow ed., The British Home of Today, 1904, ill. F7 (the settee) and F24 (one chair).
Ellwood, English Furniture and Decoration, 1909, p. 23 (ill.).
Herbert Cescinsky, Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, London 1910, 3 vols., vol. II, p. 57. fig. 49.
NACF 2001 Review (2002), P. 89, no. 4967 (ill. 251).
Lucy Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in The Lady Lever Art Gallery, 2008, 2 vols. vol. I, pp. 300-311 including pl. i25B (overall view of one of a set of eight chairs).
The present chairs appear to be additional to a documented suite of walnut seat furniture with pre-1904 provenance from James Orrock (1829-1913). The Orrock suite comprising eight chairs and a settee was sold to William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851-1925) for Thornton Manor, Wirral, Merseyside. Subsequently the eight chairs were given by Lever to the Lady Lever Art Gallery. The settee remained in the possession of the 2nd Viscount Leverhulme until it was returned to Thornton Manor after the death of the 3rd Viscount Leverhulme and sold Sotheby's 'The Leverhulme Collection, Thornton Manor', 26-28 June 2001, lot 122.
Stylistically the Levehulme suite and the offered chairs belong to a group of George II 'lion mask' furniture often associated with seminal English furniture collections such as that formed by Percival D. Griffiths during the early 20th century (see R. W. Symonds, English Furniture from Charles II to George II, 1929). The lion mask carving to the knees can also be related to that featured on the corresponding supports of the Anglo-Chinese chairs, lots 47 and 48. A further distinctive feature linking all three lots is the zoomorphic carving to the fetlock region of the front legs.