A SET OF SIX GEORGE III OCHRE-PAINTED OPEN ARMCHAIRS

These elegant cabriolet chairs, with French-fashioned squab-cushions, relate to patterns for chairs finished in japan painting issued by Thomas Sheraton in the Appendix to his Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers Drawing Book ,1793 ( 2nd ed. 1794, 3rd ed.. 1802). Their Grecian klismos tablet rails and arcaded pilaster splats relate to his New Designs for Chair Backs (pl. 49); while the urn-pillared arms featured in one of his Drawing Room Chair patterns intended for printed chintz upholstery (pl. 6). Like contemporary pen-work decoration, the tablets are decorated in antique manner with festive scenes and a sacrifice at a Pan herm in the manner of the Etruscan wares of Josiah Wedgwood. Messrs Gillows 1795 Estimate book has a related japanned and cane-seated chair pattern, with the same arms, but with its arcaded splat trellised in sacrificial Pompeian-tripod fashion as popularised by the architect Sir John Soane (see S. E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London , 2 vols. Woodbridge, 2008 (vol. 1, p.185 pl. 165).