Hall chair with lacquered back and seat board, and japanned legs and seat frame; the coat of arms on the back and seat re-painted in oils.

A hall chair of lacquered and japanned wood, the tall, parallel-sided back-board with lobed top corners, echoed in the lobed front corners of the slightly canted seat-board, which is raised on deep rails above square-section cabriole legs. The back-board and seat-board are ‘lacquered’, an East Asian technique using numerous layers of a resin derived from the Rhus verniciflua tree; whereas the seat rails and legs are ‘japanned’, a European technique adopted in imitation of East Asian lacquer. A variety of different resins could be used in japanning, including lac (derived from an insect secretion) and sandarac (a plant resin).

Decoration
The black-lacquered back and seat are both decorated with a coat of arms within a surround of luxuriant acanthus foliage. A gilt chevron border, edged with an ovolo moulding in solid gold, runs continuously around the back and seat, accentuating their lobed corners. Most of this is executed in lacquer, like the black ground. The armorial shield, however, has been painted over the lacquer in oil colours, with different arms from those originally shown, and the elephant crest above is also added in oil paint. Underneath the painted shield of arms can be seen the outline of a lobed cinquefoil, perhaps a Japanese mon (a heraldic emblem similar to a European crest). Possibly the original arms were confined within this outline, and the shield is entirely added, spreading over the original foliage surround. Some of the lacquer foliage has also been touched up in oil paints.

The arms now painted in the shields are those of Sir Herbert Pakington, 7th Baronet (who succeeded to the title in 1762) and his wife Elizabeth Hawkins (sister of Sir Caesar Hawkins, 1st Baronet), though with minor alterations (see History): Per chevron sable and argent in chief three mullets or and in base three garbs gules a canton argent charged with a dexter hand couped at the wrist gules [OR a canton with the badge of Ulster] (Packington); impaling Argent on a saltire sable five fleurs-de-lis or (Hawkins). Crest: An elephant passant or.

Construction
Besides the back and seat boards, the chair is constructed with four seat rails (taller than they are thick) tenoned and double-pegged to the front and back legs, the back legs having tapered extensions above the rails. The knees at the top of each leg are extended by small ‘ears’, on both sides of each front leg and at the front of each back leg, which are glued into the angle between the leg and the underside of the rails. The ears are lacking, or perhaps were never introduced, at the back of the back legs.

At the ‘hinge’ between the back and seat the seat board is dovetailed to the back board, with six dovetails of approximately the same width as the dovetail pins on the backboard. The joined back and seat are then fixed to the seat frame, apparently by just four screws: two countersunk round-headed screws in the underside of the front rail, going up into the seat board, and a plugged screw in each tapered extension of the back legs, going into the back board. Near the top of the tapered extensions they seem to be nailed to to the back as well, probably in a later repair. Paper slides between the seat rails and seat board, suggesting that no glue has been used.

The placing of the back and seat boards in front of the back legs brings their hinged angle about 3 cm forward from the back seat rail; the gap is filled with a softwood(?) bar, butting up to the back board and resting on top of the back rail, which is japanned to match the rest.


Object sampling carried out by Jo Darrah, V&A Science; drawer/slide reference 4/44.

Given by Brigadier W. E. Clark CMG, DSO through Art Fund

Given by Brigadier W.E. Clark DSO, through The Art Fund (Registered File 62/2520).

The coat of arms now on the chair is for Sir Herbert Packington, 7th Baronet, and his wife Elizabeth Hawkins. They married in 1759, but the arms must have been painted after he succeeded to the title in 1762, since they incorporate the badge of Ulster (a dexter hand couped at the wrist gules), which was granted to baronets.
Display history: This chair has been in storage since at least August 1985. The museum acquired two of these chairs in 1962. The other chair has been on display at Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire since June 1979.

A similar Chinese export hall chair is illustrated in Lucy Wood: The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery. 2 Volumes (Liverpool, 2008), vol. I p. 51, fig 62.

Two, similar japanned and lacquered hall chairs are illustrated in Adam Bowett, 'Early Georgian Furniture, 1715-1740 (Woodbridge, 2009).
The first is on display at Osterley Park and dates to 1715-30. It is from a set made for Sir Francis Child, director of the East India Company, 1718-19. See p.149.
The second dates to 1714-20 and is one of a set made for Sir Gregory Page (died 1720), who was also a director of the East India Company. See pp.154-5.

A pair of lacquer chairs of similar form, on legs and frames of gilded wood, were sold from Houghton on 8 December 1994, lot 110. They had belonged to Sir Philip Sassoon but may originally have been made for Houghton in the 1720s. That catalogue entry illustrated a drawing by AWN Pugin of a similar chair on 'clustered bamboo' legs, in the corridor at Brighton Pavilion, pre-1820.

A pair of chairs from the Brighton set were exhibited in 1929 and illustrated in A.J.B. Wace, Catalogue of the Loan Exhibition of English Decorative Arts at Lansdowne House, 17th to 28th February 1929. London, 1929, no. 435, illustrated pl. XCIV. Those chairs were described as being on a very dark green ground and were dated 'About 1780'. They are said to be illustrated in The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1924-27, vol. I , p. 248. fig. 129.

A pair of similar lacquer chairs, with the arms of William Heathcote (1693-17510 were sold in Christie's Exceptional Sale, 2 July 2024, lot 17. They were probably made for his marriage in 1720 to Lady Elizabeth Parker, daughter of the 1st Earl of Macclesfield. William Heathcote's father was merchant and a director of the East India Company. William Heathcote were probably acquired to furnish Hursley Park, Hampshire. Those chairs include full landscape scenes in lacquer below the armorials.

The lacquered back and seat board made in China, the japanned seat rails and legs made in Britain (probably London), where the chair was assembled, ca. 1725-30. The coat of arms and elephant crest painted in oils in or after 1762, concealing an original armorial device in lacquer

This chair reflects the complex patterns of trade and stylistic influence between Europe and East Asia in the 18th century. The lacquered back-board and seat-board were commissioned in Britain from China, and a pattern for the lacquered coat of arms must have been sent out with the order. The two boards could be packed flat to take up minimal space in the ship on its return voyage. On arrival they were assembled with the seat rails and legs, which were made in Britain and 'japanned' here in imitation of lacquer. Hall chairs of this type were fashionable in Britain in the 1720s-30s, and a number of similar examples survive.

Hall chairs, arranged around the walls of an entrance hall, were intended for the occasional use of waiting servants but not for comfort. They typically displayed the arms of the house's owner. However, the original owner of this chair is unknown, for the arms have been altered. The present armorial shield and elephant crest – painted in oils, not lacquered – are for Sir Herbert Pakington, Baronet, and his wife Elizabeth Hawkins. These arms must have been painted after Sir Herbert succeeded to the title in 1762 – a generation after the chairs were made.

W.16-1962