A SET OF TWELVE WHITE-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT DINING CHAIRS

The present suite of dining chairs were designed by London cabinet-maker, John Linnell (d.1796). His sketch for this model is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum and reflects the French antique style of the early 1770s. Their design, with acanthus-supported medallion backs, Grecian-scrolled arms with acanthus-wrapped cabochons and imbricated-paterae embellishing the hermed front legs is directly inspired by a prototype French chair-pattern executed by the menuisier Jean-Baptiste Boulard (maître in 1755) and illustrated in M. Jarry, Le Siège Français, Fribourg, 1973, p. 203, figs. 195-6. The distinctive leaf clasped arm terminal is also seen on a giltwood canapé by Claude Sené I from the Jack and Belle Linsky collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1982.60.71).