Armchair
ca. 1755-1765 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This armchair (the pair to W.16-1977) originally formed one of a set of four settees and at least twenty-five armchairs, made for the Earl of Shaftesbury at St Giles’s House, in Dorset. They may have been made for a large saloon or drawing room, or perhaps for a long suite of rooms. The set was probably made in the workshop of William Vile and John Cobb, one of the most accomplished furniture-making firms of the 18th century. Vile’s specialism was carving, and it is likely that he designed these chairs and supervised their making in the workshop. He had trained with William Hallett, who had also made furniture for Lord Shaftesbury from 1744 until his own retirement, in 1752.
The modern silk covers, put on by the Museum, were dyed to match a surviving fragment of the original, and the chairs have been upholstered in the traditional 18th-century manner, with tufting, piping (or ‘welting’) and close nailing.
The modern silk covers, put on by the Museum, were dyed to match a surviving fragment of the original, and the chairs have been upholstered in the traditional 18th-century manner, with tufting, piping (or ‘welting’) and close nailing.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Carved mahogany on a beech under-frame |
| Brief description | Carved mahogany armchair from St Giles's House, English, ca. 1755--65 |
| Physical description | Mahogany armchairs with rectangular stuffed backs and stuffed seats, the shaped padded arms on the downcurved supports headed by flowerheads and carved with chains of flowers on a trellis and rosette pattern ground, the seatrails carved with scallop-shells and flowerheads dvdided by leaf-scroll sprays and with a rosette and ribbon lower moulding, the square legs carved similarly to the arms and ending in guttae feet. |
| Dimensions |
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| Gallery label |
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| Credit line | Given by Mr and Mrs Francis Hock |
| Object history | Two sofas from the same set were offered for sale by Ronald Phillips in 2024, advertised in Country Life, 19 June 2024, vol. CCXXII, no. 25 |
| Production | This chair and its pair (W.16-1977) were formerly attributed to William Hallett, on the strength of the payments to him in the accounts of the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury, 1745--52 (see DEFM, p. 389). However, the chairs are unlikely to date from before 1755 at the very earliest, and Hallett appears to have effectively retired in the early 1750s (though he afterwards provided financial backing to the partnership of Vile & Cobb, established c. 1752). William Vile, who had been Hallett's principal journeyman, is quite likely to have retained the custom of Lord Shaftesbury. A stylistic link is presented by the stools supplied by Vile & Cobb to The Vyne, Hampshire, in 1753, which have similar feet in the form of architectural guttae (Anthony Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture (1968), p. 27, fig. 28). |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | This armchair (the pair to W.16-1977) originally formed one of a set of four settees and at least twenty-five armchairs, made for the Earl of Shaftesbury at St Giles’s House, in Dorset. They may have been made for a large saloon or drawing room, or perhaps for a long suite of rooms. The set was probably made in the workshop of William Vile and John Cobb, one of the most accomplished furniture-making firms of the 18th century. Vile’s specialism was carving, and it is likely that he designed these chairs and supervised their making in the workshop. He had trained with William Hallett, who had also made furniture for Lord Shaftesbury from 1744 until his own retirement, in 1752. The modern silk covers, put on by the Museum, were dyed to match a surviving fragment of the original, and the chairs have been upholstered in the traditional 18th-century manner, with tufting, piping (or ‘welting’) and close nailing. |
| Associated object | W.16-1977 (Set) |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | W.17-1977 |
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| Record created | January 25, 2001 |
| Record URL |
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