A PAIR OF ENGLISH RED-PAINTED SIMULATED BAMBOO COCKPEN ARMCHAIRS

The design of these chairs is close to that of the set of ten 'neat bamboo chairs' supplied by John Linnell to William Drake of Shardeloes, Buckinghamshire in 1767. The dished seat on the present chairs is clearly an improvement on the original design since most variants adopt it. Such chairs were clearly highly fashionable in the late 1760s. In June 1768 Sir Gilbert Heathcote purchased from Thomas Chippendale '6 India Back and arm Chairs japand to imitate the Bamboe....' for Normanton Hall at a cost of (£9 9s 0d (C. Gilbert, The Life and Works of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, pp. 249-250).