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Chair

ca. 1700 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Object Type
This chair is from a set of eight chairs, two stools and a settee. Suites of seat furniture such as this were sometimes used to furnish state bedchambers. They were luxurious furnishings intended to show wealth and status. The high back with an arched cresting was fashionable in the 1690s, and showed off luxurious fabrics well.

Places
The first record we have of the chairs is in 1906, in an article in the magazine Country Life on Hornby Castle, Yorkshire. However, the chair was probably made for another house, Kiveton Park, which was built by the 1st Duke of Leeds, Sir Thomas Osborne, in 1697-1705. The 5th Duke of Leeds, Francis Godolphin Osborne, married the heiress of Hornby Castle in 1773, and the chair might have been moved from Kiveton Park to Hornby Castle after this date.

Materials & Making
The present covers are replacements. The original upholstery fabric was probably the same as that seen on photographs of the matching settee taken in 1906, which had Genoa velvet in red, blue and black on a brown background. The gilt frame to the back is an unusual feature, which hides the edges of the upholstery. The surface finish on the chair frame is not original.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Beech, carved, painted and gilded, with modern upholstery
Brief description
Chair, one of a pair from a larger set, orginally made for Kiveton Park, South Yorkshire, with tall back, the frame black, with gilding, the seat and back upholstered in polychrome cut velvet.
Physical description
High-backed side chair, the frame painted black over gilded gesso, with upholstered fixed seat and back. The frame is painted black with mouldings and raised, gilded ornaments. Nailed around the seat rails is a carved moulding (with a running pattern of oval, rhombus and leaf), gilded on three sides and plain black on the back. The back of the chair back frame is painted black but otherwise plain. The seat pad and back pad are stuffed to a rounded profile with show covers of raised 'Genoa' velvet in green, red and brown on a cream ground, apparently replaced in the early 20th century.

There is a gap (max 11cm) between the top of the seat and the bottom edge of the back frame. At its top and bottom the arched back panel has a S- and C-scroll outline. The seat rails at the front and sides have a 'valanced' apron, decorated with raised, carved and gilded 'jewel' ornaments. The back legs, which rake backwards below the seat have three mouldings picked out in gilding, and an enlarged foot section which is slightly curved. The carved front legs are of doubled, square-baluster form. They are united to the back legs by a H-form stretcher consisting of four S-scrolls linked by a central, vertical arch with half acorn finial.

Construction
Joined with some pegging, the rails tenoned into the legs, with some nailed mouldings. The rear uprights apparently full-height. The cresting, in two lap-jointed sections, is lap jointed to the back uprights. The gilded framing moulding on the front of the back panel is held by 8 round-headed screws from the back.

Upholstery
Supported on open webbing and base cloth, with stuffing ties visible from underneath. On the back, the reverse has a linen cover (split in places) over a canvas stuffing cover. The stuffing is presumed to be horsehair.

Condition
Many losses to the paint and gilding revealing gesso and areas of bare wood. The current black paint has been crudely applied. Four reinforcing corner blocks added under the seat, each held on two modern screws. Two reinforcing splints have been added under the stretcher. Metal caps have been added under all four feet.
Dimensions
  • Height: 135cm
  • Width: 57cm
  • Depth: 64cm
  • Seat height: 46cm (Note: Height of top of seat rail from the floor: 39.5cm)
Dimensions checked: measured; 21/01/1999 by DW
Style
Marks and inscriptions
G. Jetley, 24 Bruton street, Berkeley Square W1 (Label on underside of seat frame)
Credit line
Given by Baron Philippe de Rothschild
Object history
Given (with W.11-1964) by Baron Philippe de Rothschild, RF 64/1523

Supplied to Sir Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds (created 1694), probably for Kiveton Park, South Yorkshire (1697-1705, demolished 1811). Made in an unknown London workshop.
Part of a suite comprising chairs, stools and at least one settee; probably the suite recorded in an inventory of Kiveton dated 1727, in the Great Drawing Room on the second floor -- "14 Chairs & 2 Stools frames Black & Gold. Cover'd wth flowred Velvt. trim'd wth guilt Mouldings and Serge Cases. / 1 Large Seat Ditto" (NAL: MSL/1983/11A, f. 9). The Great Drawing Room was inventoried after the Great Dining Room, and before the Great Bedchamber, Best Dressing Room and Best Closet.

The entry: Sotheby's Paris (Hôtel Lambert), 16-17/3/2005, lot 7 states that all or part of five(?) suites of furniture of various designs from Hornby Castle were sold at Christie's, London in 1920. They were all either plainly japanned in black or gilded/black, but may have been originally gilded.

Other related chairs from the same suite or related suites made for the Duke of Leeds
-Sofa and a daybed with original coverings of arabesque Genoese velvet in crimson, green and cinnamon on a dark cream satin ground with tasselled fringes. Sold Christie's 1920, lot 107, now Temple Newsam House, Leeds
-Settee (4' 8 1/2" x 5' 8") in the collection of the Duke of Leeds, Hornby Castle 1905; afterwards in the collection of Mrs David Gubbay; illustrated in Percy MacQuoid: History of English Furniture, Vol. II. The Age of Walnut (London, 1904), p.114, plate 6, opp.p. 80
-Pair of similar chairs attributed to Philip Guibert, black and gilt frame with matching upholstery, 'with traces of the original gesso and gilded finish beneath decoration'. Offered Sotheby's London, 30/11/2001 lot 48 (previously listed as sold Christie's, London, 10 June 1920, lot 114). The entry states that the suite consisted of at least 8 chairs (two at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, two at V&A), a pair of stools, and a settee (sold Sotheby's London, 29/1/1960), supplied for either Kiveton Park, Yorkshire or Wimbledon, Surrey. Two cabinet-makers are known to have worked at Kiveton: Thomas Young, and Philip Guibert (aka Gibbard and Gilbert) who supplied Windsor and Kensington Palace with furniture 1697-8. The entry also refers to a set of five stools 'almost certainly forming part of the same commision as the offered lot, sold Christie's, London, 9/7/1998, lots 16-20.
-Suite of six gilded and upholstered armchairs and a further chair extended to form a sofa; Sotheby's Paris (Hôtel Lambert), 16-17/3/2005, lot 7

Comparable furniture
Suite of gilded furniture supplied by London upholder Thomas Howe to 5th Earl of Salisbury for Hatfield House, St Albans, 1711
Summary
Object Type
This chair is from a set of eight chairs, two stools and a settee. Suites of seat furniture such as this were sometimes used to furnish state bedchambers. They were luxurious furnishings intended to show wealth and status. The high back with an arched cresting was fashionable in the 1690s, and showed off luxurious fabrics well.

Places
The first record we have of the chairs is in 1906, in an article in the magazine Country Life on Hornby Castle, Yorkshire. However, the chair was probably made for another house, Kiveton Park, which was built by the 1st Duke of Leeds, Sir Thomas Osborne, in 1697-1705. The 5th Duke of Leeds, Francis Godolphin Osborne, married the heiress of Hornby Castle in 1773, and the chair might have been moved from Kiveton Park to Hornby Castle after this date.

Materials & Making
The present covers are replacements. The original upholstery fabric was probably the same as that seen on photographs of the matching settee taken in 1906, which had Genoa velvet in red, blue and black on a brown background. The gilt frame to the back is an unusual feature, which hides the edges of the upholstery. The surface finish on the chair frame is not original.
Associated object
W.11-1964 (Set)
Bibliographic reference
Adam Bowett and Ian Fraser, 'An Imposter Unmasked: the "Duke of Leeds" suite at Temple Newsam House', Furniture History, vol. LI (2015), pp. 77-86. W.11-1964 illustrated as fig. 10., p. 85.
Collection
Accession number
W.11A-1964

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Record createdMay 2, 2003
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