A long hall seat of Hepplewhite style, in mahogany, with thirteen baluster splats beneath an arched toprail, the legs turned and fluted, below a seat rail with horizontal reeding, the seat caned, with a separate cushion, upholstered in red cotton damask (.2)

A long, narrow hall seat of mahogany, with a caned seat. The form is in the spirit of designs by George Hepplewhite published in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide (London, 1788). The settee is raised on five legs, the three on the front turned and fluted, above peg feet, the back legs of square section, tapering and raked. The front legs are topped with square blocks, the front surfaces carved with paterae (rosettes), the central one showing a segmented circle with beaded edge, the side ones with a rosette of formal foliage curving round on to the side faces of the blocks. The seat rails tenoned between these blocks are horizontally reeded, and the frame of the seat overhangs these, with a moulded edge. The top surface is plain, and provides a frame for the caned seat, which is in two panels, with a single rail running between the front and back frames behind the central leg. The back legs continue as the uprights of the back, which has a plain lower rail. The uprights (which rake outwards at the top) and the arched top rail, are moulded on the front faces and carved with formal flower heads on blocks at the corner and in the centre of the top rail. The outer edges of the back uprights and the top rail show scratch mouldings close to the edges. The back is set with thirteen elongated baluster splats, each carved with a flower head at the thinnest point. The arms supports are straight and tapering, the lower part carved with upright leaves, the upper part with serpentine reeding. The arms are narrow scrolls, the upper surface moulded, with carved scrolling where they meet the back uprights, the hand rests carved with scrolling on the inner faces and with paterae (rosettes) on the outer surfaces.

The seat has two loose, squab cushions, covered in crimson cotton damask. Each has a deep welt (approximately 8 cm deep), piped on the top edge, and the underside of the cushion is lined with a pink, plain-weave cotton. The cushions are probably stuffed with horsehair, covered with a thick layer of cotton wadding. There is no visible buttoning or tufting. This squabs appear to date from the first half of the 20th century and may have been made by the Museum workshops. Such a seat may well have had such a cushion originally, but that would probably have been thinner and harder, with horsehair stuffing only.

Condition
There is a small section broken off the uppermost scroll on the left (PR) arm. The cushion is split in places where threads have decayed.

This seat was bought in Paris in 1893 from the dealers Fulgence et Compagnie, 50 rue St. Lazare, Paris, for £7. 18s. 7d. (Registered File 26304/1893). At the time of its purchase it was described by the dealer as 'I Long mahogany cane seat with back (canework broken and chair repaired)', but nothing was said as to its origin. When it was first recorded by the Museum in acquisition records, it was described as 'English, 18th century', but it seems more likely that it was made either in Holland or the Southern Netherlands. A wooden bench with back in the form of a series of balusters was illustrated as early as 1775 for garden use by J.A. Roubo in Paris. Nicole de Reynies, Le Mobilier Domestique. Vocabulaire Typologique (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1987), vol. I, p. 141, illustrates this design, with another, from a pprint of 1797, and a bench of about 1800 from the Chateau de Malmaison. All those benches have rectangular backs. This bench, although related in design, is more refined in detail, with an arched back and a seat of caned panels. Such a design would have been seen as very suitable for hall, a space which was intermediate between the garden and the interior of the house.

It was lent to the National Trust at Derrymore, Northern Ireland for some years before 2018.

This kind of seat would have been used in a hall and has a solid wooden seat similar to hall chairs.

At the end of the 18th century there was a great fashion in continental Europe for all things in the 'English style'. This hall seat, which is close in spirit to designs by George Hepplewhite published in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide in 1788, was long thought to be English but it seems to be more likely that it was made in Holland or Belgium. Such narrow settees or benches were generally used in halls, where furniture had to be simpler to withstand constant wear by servants awaiting their master, but in England hall chairs were more common than hall benches. One feature that is not often seen on English seat furniture of the period is the rosettes of foliage that wrap round the front corners.

542-1893