A PAIR OF GEORGE II SOLID MAHOGANY HALL ARMCHAIRS

These elegant hall armchairs, with their solid saddle-form seat and distinctive cabriole legs, belong to a distinct group which relate to provincial Windsor chairs, but because of their more sophisticated design and use of high quality mahogany, are more likely to have been executed by a major London cabinet-maker.
Closely related chairs, possibly comprising those offered here, were sold from the collection of Benjamin Sonnenberg, 5-9 June 1979, lot 1700 (a set of four), and a pair sold Sotheby’s, New York, 11-12 April 1997, lot 751 ($46,000). Other chairs from this group but with spindle-tuned uprights to the back include a pair sold from the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, Christie’s, New York, 10 May 2018, lot 646 ($52,500) and others with the variant feature of vase-capped baluster splats which probably formed part of a larger set, including one from the Collection of Professor Sir Albert Richardson, P.R.A., sold Christie’s, London, 22 April 2004, lot 29 (£45,410). A closely related set of mahogany armchairs, conceivably by the same maker, line the marble hall at Holkham Hall, the Norfolk seat of the Earls of Leicester.