A PAIR OF GEORGE II STONE-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT ARMORIAL HALL CHAIRS

The coat of arms adorning these hall chairs is that of the Barrington family of Barrington Hall, Essex. Though these arms were likely painted on to the chairs in the 19th century, they refer to a prestigious dynastic marriage made by Thomas Barrington to Winifred Pole in the first quarter of the 16th century. The Barrington arms in the top left are quartered by Winifred's arms consisting of Pole, Plantagenet, Nevill, Beauchamp and Montague, five of mediaeval England's most prominent dynasties. The prestige of this match is indicated by the fact that descendants of the family continued to use these arms into the 19th century, even when the baronetcy itself had died out.
The arms appear on two chairs by Chippendale, one currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (64.101.980), most probably made for Barrington Hall when it was under reconstruction in the mid-18th century. The Barrington baronetcy became extinct upon the death of Fitzwilliam Barrington in 1833 and with his four daughters inheriting, it is difficult to say which member of the family might have redecorated the current chairs. Barrington Hall had lain empty for most of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, victim to an overly ambitious reconstruction programme but in the mid-19th century it was inherited by George Alan Lowndes who remodelled the house in Jacobean style. It is possible that these chairs were redecorated in line with the house's revival.