Armchair for a grotto or garden building, the seat and back composed of flattened scallop shells, the legs and arms carved with sea motifs, the whole with painted, silvered and varnished finish (modern).

Armchair for a grotto or garden building, the seat and back composed of flattened scallop shells, the legs and arms carved with sea motifs, the whole with painted, silvered and varnished finish (modern).
The four legs are carved with rocaille (shelly carved forms), the upper level (what would be the 'knee' on a cabriole leg) in the form of an open abalone shell. These are silvered, as is the narrow channel down the front of the leg, against carved shell-work that is painted green and brown to suggest seaweed. The legs are outcurved at the base. The seat and back are carved with ribs but these are flattened for comfort. The arms supports are carved in the form of dolphine, their raised tails set against the back, with their bodies curving down to form the arm support with the dolphin's head at the base.
The painting appears very recent adn the silvering does not show the overlapping marks of silver leaf or tin leaf, suggesing that it is a paint, with varnish over it that has now yellowed. The back of the back panel and the underside of the seat are painted green but areas that are silvered appear to be painted black as an under layer.

Construction
The chair is relatively light in weight and may be made of either a softwood or of poplar.The back is jointed to the seat with two large dovetails. The legs are tenoned up into the seat and are supported by wooden brackets with curved front edges, like 19th-century chair blocks. The legs are built up from blocks to allow for the carving of the motifs. These are fixed crudely with both nails and screws. The arms are tenoned into the back and fixed at the lower edge with large screws from the underside of the seat. Details of the construction are difficult to see under the heavy paint but the seat and the back appear to be cut from single boards. There is a large, central screw hole under the seat.

For acquisition see Registered File 72/659

A somewhat similar chair, but without arms, and with the back in the form of a mussel shell, was illustrated in Country Life, 2 October 1986 (probably in 'Saleroom Notes'). The legs and seat are strikingly similar to the V&A chair. That chair came from the collection of Edward James at West Dean, from a Christie's sale of early July 1986 (date to be checked). The photograph in Country Life is black and white so it is not possible to compare the colour. A pair of almost identical chairs, but painted brown, were sold at Christie's, New York, 29 and 30 March 2001, lot 443.

In 2015 Dr Christian Witt-Dörring, Vienna, sent copies of the 1904 catalogue of Pauly & Cie of Venice, in relation to the stand W. 41-1934. Item 3019 in that catalogue shows this chair and its production by this 'Fabrique de Verreries et Meubles Artistique' in Venice explains the occurence of the model so frequently in salerooms as noted above. The departmental file contains copies of the pages of the Pauly catalogue showing this form of chair.

This armchair appears to have been made to the design of a chairs made by Pauly & Cie, Venice. In their catalogue of 1904 an identical chair is shown as item 3019. They described themselves on the cover of the catalogue as 'Fabrique de Verreries et Meubles Artistiques'

Fanciful and decorative chairs of this form were made to furnish garden buildings and grottos in the middle of the 18th century. They are inventive and witty in design by may be quite crude in terms of craftsmanship. That makes if difficult to judge their age and when a piece has been re-painted, as this one clearly has, dating is only really possible if scientific analysis of the paint layers can be undertaken. Such piece greatly appealed to collectorsand decorators in the late 19th and early 20th century and it is not surprising that many copies or new versions of a design were made.

W.2-1972