A SET OF FOUR GEORGE III MAHOGANY ARMCHAIRS

This 'antique' chair form, with looped shield-back, appears to have been introduced in the 1770s by the architect James Wyatt (d.1813); while the feather-enriched splat was popularised by Hepplewhite & Co.'s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788. A related sketch for a 'Drapery and Feather' back chair also features in Gillows' 1787 Estimate Sketch Book. Such feather-backed chairs are almost certainly the 'Prince's Pattern' noted by Gillows in the summer of 1787. In January 1788, the firm supplied Nathaniel Crompton Esq. of Manchester with '10 elegant mahogany arm'd chairs (feather pattern) ye backs, fronts & elbows neatly enriched & molded & finished in the best manner' at a cost of 42s. per chair. As Susan Stuart comments, 'This feather pattern was undoubtedly one of the finest, most expensive and striking patterns the Lancaster firm ever manufactured' (Susan E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840, vol. II, Woodbridge, 2008, p. 161, pl. 114).