Object Type
This chair was originally part of a set of eight armchairs and four sofas commissioned for the grandest room for entertaining in a great London house. As the most important seating furniture in the house, it was designed by the architect responsible for the alterations and decoration of the house, Robert Adam (1728-1792). The chair's legs have castors (small wheels), thus it could easily be moved into the required place for group conversation.
Design & Designing
Adam's watercolour design for one of the sofas is dated 1764 and preserved in Sir John Soane's Museum, London. The design - inscribed 'Sopha chairs for the Salon' - cost Sir Lawrence Dundas £5. It is the only example to survive of an Adam design on paper that was executed by Chippendale.
Materials & Making
The supplier, Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779), charged œ20 for each chair. His bill described the chairs as 'exceedingly Richly Carv'd in the Antick manner and Gilt in oil Gold Stuff'd and cover'd with your own Damask and strong Castors on the feet'. Dundas, who patronised both Chippendale and Adam on a number of occasions, provided the silk damask fabric for the top covers. The use of oil gold is curious. It was cheaper than water gilding, because it could not take burnishing. But it provided a more consistent appearance, since it did not result in contrasting matt and burnished areas, so characteristic of water gilding.
Physical description
Armchair of gilded beechwood and walnut; scarlet damask upholstery modern.
The chair is inscribed with a chisel on the front rail 'VII' indicating that it is number seven from a set of eight armchairs and four sofas for the Great Room at 19 Arlington Street.
Place of Origin
London, England (made)
Date
1764-1765 (made)
after 1765 (restored)
Artist/maker
Robert Adam, born 1728 - died 1792 (designer)
chippendale, born 1718 - died 1779 (maker)
Materials and Techniques
Gilded beechwood and walnut, with modern scarlet damask upholstery
Marks and inscriptions
'VII'
Dimensions
Height: 106 cm, Width: 77 cm, Depth: 77 cm
Object history note
Commissioned by Sir Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet.
Historical context note
In the early days of Neo-classicism the style was often combined with earlier styles. While the decoration of this chair is Neo-classical, its overall form has the curved shapes of the earlier Rococo style, combined with a back taken from furniture in the Palladian style.
Sir Lawrence Dundas was the son of an Edinburgh woollen-draper. Described by his contemporary, the writer James Boswell as a 'shrewd man of the world', Dundas made a fortune as merchant contractor to the army. He employed Robert Adam to redecorate the interiors of his London house in Arlington Street, and his country house, Moor Park in Hertfordshire. Other leading London furniture makers supplied furniture for these interiors.
Descriptive line
Armchair designed by Robert Adam for Sir Lawrence Dundas, made by Thomas Chippendale, gilded beechwood and walnut, upholstery not original, London, Britain, 1764-65.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Baker, Malcolm and Richardson, Brenda, eds. A Grand Design : The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1997. 431 p., ill. ISBN 1851773088.
This imposing chair was part of a set with seven other chairs and four sofas (fig. 117) from the house of Sir Lawrence Dundas at 19 Arlington Street, London, all of which were sold during the 1930s when the dispersal of country house collections and the demolition of many aristocratic London townhouses led to the sale of much important English furniture. Designed by Robert Adam for an interior that he also designed, the chair was proudly presented by the Museum as an iconic work of the late-eighteenth-century architect.
The association of the suite with an Adam design (a watercolour design, dated 1764, for one sofa, is among the Adam drawings in Sir John Soane's museum) was made in 1922 by Arthur Bolton in The Architecture of Robert & James Adam, where it was suggested that the suite was the work of the cabinetmaker Samuel Norman. Bolton's book crystallised the admiration for Adam that had developed in the late nineteenth century, using the large body of surviving drawings to make firm attributions to Adam with unusual documentary precision. It was Bolton's discovery of the design that allowed the chair to be claimed for England, though "hitherto regarded as French."
In 1936 the Museum had received architectural woodwork and plasterwork from the Adam brothers' speculative development at London's Adelphi. Its demolition was to provoke outrage among those concerned with architectural preservation. The purchase of this chair a year later, however, generated little comment: it was assumed to be an important document of English design, and its acquisition brooked no dissent.
A further significant connection was established in 1967 when Anthony Coleridge's archival research linked the chair to a suite that had been described in a bill of 9 July 1765 from Thomas Chippendale to Sir Lawrence Dundas. According to this document, the chairs were "exceedingly Richly Carv'd in the Antick manner" and cost the very large sum of £20 each. This was not only the single recorded instance of Chippendale working to Adam's designs but, equally significant, it was the cabinetmaker's first use of the term "Antick" to describe his furniture. Evidently, Chippendale was proud of his interpretation of Adam's design in the emergent Neoclassical taste.
Already associated with Adam, and then with Chippendale, the iconic significance of the suite soared as it was recognised as the only fully documented evidence of a collaboration between these two preeminent figures in the history of decorative arts in Britain.
Lit. Bolton, 1922, vol. II, pp. 291, 293; Coleridge, 1967; Tomlin, 1972, pp. 2-3; Gilbert, 1978, pp. 154-60; Wilk, 1996, p. 118
SARAH MEDLAM
Exhibition History
A Grand Design - The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 12/10/1999-16/01/2000)
Labels and date
ARMCHAIR
ENGLISH; about 1765
Gilded beechwood
Designed by Robert Adam for the 'salon' of Sir Lawrence Dundas' house at 19, Arlington Street, London. One of '8 large Arm Chairs exeeding richly carved in the Antick manner and gilt in oil Gold stuffed and covr'd with your own damask and strong Castors on the feet' for which Thomas Chippendale charged £160 in July 1765. [pre October 2000]
4. Armchair
Britain (London); 1765
Designed by Robert Adam (1728-92) and made by Thomas Chippendale (1718-
79) for the 'Great Room' of the London house of Sir Lawrence Dundas (1710?-81) at 19 Arlington Street, London
Gilded beech and walnut; modern upholstery; from a set of eight chairs and four sofas.
This chair is part of the only known set of furniture made by Chippendale to Adam's design (the design is in Sir John Soane's Museum, London). Chippendale usually worked to his own designs. [1996]
Subjects depicted
Foliation (pattern); Shell; Claw feet; Wealth
Categories
Furniture
Collection code
FWK
