Footnotes

The offered chairs closely follow a group of ornate 18th century drawing room seat furniture, and especially relate to a set of four armchairs at Harewood House, which were all made by Thomas Chippendale or Chippendale's firm.

Aside from a slightly different decoration on the arms, and a notable lack of ornament under their front seat rails, the offered examples seem otherwise virtually identical to the aforementioned which were supplied to Harewood in 1770 on behalf of Edwin Lascelles. One of the latter are illustrated in C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, Vol. II, fig. 182, p. 108. The armchairs made for Lascelles formed part of one of Chippendale's major commissions and were documented in a 1795 inventory of Harewood in the following way: '4 Chairs in burnished gold covered with crimson damask, with crimson serge loose covers'.

Offered on behalf of the 7th Earl of Harewood, these chairs sold Christie's London, 1 July 1965, lot 55 and were purchased by the famous London antiques firm, Mallet & Son Ltd. Subsequently, it is evident that Mallet sold them as two pairs of chairs. They also appear in L. Synge, Chairs, 1978, pl. 55a and L. Synge, Great English Furniture, 1991, fig. 112, pp.'s 100-101.

A further model which appears to be the same as the above features in Gilbert's The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, fig. 183, p. 108. It is described therein as one of a set of six chairs and as 'representative of numerous unprovenanced suites which conform to Chippendale's standard documented patterns'. These six can be traced back to the 1950s, when they were bought from Scotney & Son Antiques of Stamford, Lincolnshire, by Charles Lumb & Sons Ltd. of Harrogate, Yorkshire (Frank Lumb, An Appreciation From His Many Friends, 1993, pp. 31–32).

Additional versions include; an armchair from the collection of Henry Ford II, sold Christie's, New York, 17 October 1981, lot 172; one exhibited by Ronald Phillips Ltd. at the Masterpiece fair, London, 2018 (also illustrated in their catalogue, Ronald Phillips, the Legacy of Thomas Chippendale, 2018, London, pp.'s 166-169); and a further example sold Sotheby's, London, 4 December 2013, lot 489, described as having been acquired from Mallett, 20 October 1967.