A SET OF FOUR GEORGE III MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS

The parlour chair displays a gothic-fretted 'Venus' shell badge, celebrating love's triumph, framed in picturesque fashion beneath a serpentined and arched cresting; and its pattern derives in part from a George II banqueting-seat issued in 1751 by the St. Martin's Lane draughtsman Matthias Darly in A New Book of Chinese, Gothic and Modern Chairs, and later reissued in Robert Manwaring's The Chair-Makers Guide, 1769. (see C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, fig. 138). The back has its ribboned splat conjoined with its pilasters in the contemporary fashion promoted by the architect James Paine; and also relates to those of a set of chairs sold Christie's, London, 28 February 1963, lot 72.