A SET OF EIGHT VICTORIAN WALNUT AND PARCEL GILT DINING CHAIRS

Designed by the leading artist and sculptor Alfred Stevens (d.1875), these handsome French-influenced chairs, the only known survivors from an original set of thirty, were supplied in 1856-8 by Holland and Sons to the connoisseur and M.P. Robert Staynor Holford (d.1892) for the dining room of his magnificent Mayfair palace, Dorchester House, which was tragically demolished in 1929. The chairs are recorded in photographs of the house in 1905 and 1928. Bryson, Culyer and Copping were furniture makers who collaborated with Holland and Sons on this important commission.