A PAIR OF GEORGE II MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIRS

These parlour chairs evolved from the George I 'India' back chairs with their backs fretted with festive ribbons in the George II picturesque fashion as popularised by William de la Cour's First Book of Ornament, 1741. With their triumphal arched crests interwoven with the 'vase' splats, they relate to the architect George Dance Senior's contemporary proposals for the beribboned garlands to be executed in stucco at London's Mansion House (see S. Jeffery, The Mansion House, London, 1993 fig. 124). Contemporary chairs of simpler weave appear to have belonged to the artist Francis Hayman (d.1776) since they appear in so many of his portraits (see Lawrence Gowing, 'Hogarth, Hayman, and the Vauxhall Decorations' Burlington Magazine, Jan. 1953, p. 13, fig. 11)