A GEORGE III MAHOGANY OPEN ARMCHAIR

This chair can be related to the designs, and seat-furniture from identified commissions for which bills/accounts exist, of the cabinet-/chair-maker John Linnell (1729-96). The chair-back resembles a rough sketch by Linnell, circa 1768-70, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (E.74-1929). This design is from a portfolio entitled: A Miscellaneous Collection of Original Designs, made, and for the most part executed, during an extensive Practice of many years in the first line of his Profession, by John Linnell, Upholsterer Carver & Cabinet Maker. Selected from his Portfolios at his Decease, by C. H. Tatham Architect. AD 1800; Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842), the Regency architect-designer, was Linnell’s cousin, and the executor of his estate. The presence of a light pencil sketch next to the ink drawing demonstrates that Linnell was experimenting with form.

The distinctive splat pattern of this chair is found on a satinwood armchair with green-painted decoration from a set supplied to accompany bedroom furniture at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, for Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825) in circa 1780 (H. Hayward, P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, Vol. II, fig. 98). It also shares the same individual moulded terminal to the base of the arm support where it joins the seat rail. While the ball-clasped finials are a unique feature associated with Linnell, found on another Linnell design for an armchair (E.82-1929), and on a set of ten armchairs, made for Robert Child (1739-82) of Child's Bank, Fleet Street, probably for his London mansion at 38 Berkeley Square, which was being furnished between 1769 and 1776 under the direction of the architect-designer, Robert Adam (1728-92) (ibid., fig. 72). The Child chairs also have near-identical clasped lotus leaves where the arm joins the back and related octagonal moulding under the ball terminal; two armchairs from this suite were offered Christie's London, 14 June 2001, lot 80. These Linnell motifs are also on a suite of seat furniture supplied to the Duke of Argyll for Inveraray Castle, circa 1775-78 (ibid., fig. 89).

Linnell studied French ornament at the St. Martin's Lane Academy before working for his father, William, and eventually inheriting his father's cabinet-making and upholstery workshops in Berkeley Square in 1763. By the mid-1760's, Linnell displayed a growing interest in Neo-classical form and ornament. His designs from this period reveal the influence of Adam, who worked on many of the same houses as Linnell, and it was probably Adam, who recommended Linnell to his patrons such as Child's Osterley Park, Middlesex, William Drake's Shardeloes, Buckinghamshire, and Lord Scarsdale's Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire.

A similar armchair was sold Bonham’s, London, 21 November 2012, lot 85 (£13,750 inc. premium), and a pair sold Sotheby's, London, 8 March 2016, lot 61 (£18,750 inc. premium).