Thomas Chippendale

Date: circa 1775

Period: George III

Origin: English

Medium: Mahogany

Dimension: 91.5 x 63.5 x 65 cm (36 x 25 x 25⁵/₈ inches)

Provenance: These armchairs, with their elegantly rounded backs, serpentine seats, panelled term front legs headed by blocks and terminating in spade feet, can be attributed to the St Martin's Lan workshops of Thomas Chippendale, based on its idiosyncratic constructional features and similarities to a suite of furniture supplied by Chippendale and his son, Thomas Chippendale Junior to Ninian Home (1732-95) for the dining room at Paxton House, Berwickshire, circa 1774-6. The leg pattern of this chair in particular features on the cellaret, sideboard, three window seats and set of four bergers supplued for that room and still at Paxton. (C Gilbert, The Life and WOrk of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, pp, 79, 99, 193 & 215, pls. 124, 162, 351 & 391). Whilst no bill for the dining room furniture survies, in a letter to Haig and Chippendale (jnr.) dated 20 June 1789, Ninian Home wrote: I must observe that with respect to your window curtains that your estimate is considerably higher than I paid for those in the ding room... They were furnished in January 1776. The fact that Home's plantations in the West Indies kept him away from Paxton for extended periods of time as well as his accounts and correspondence suggest that he furnished Paxton one room at a time - and strongly infer a date for the dining room furniture of 1775-6. 
Chippendale's authorship can also be substantiated by comparison with the elaborate sideboard suite he supplied for the dining room at Harewood c 1770.