Armchair in carved and gilded limewood, upholstered with modern green silk damask. From a set of seat furniture designed by James Stuart for Spencer House, London. English, 1759.

A large giltwood armchair featuring a cartouche-shaped splat with carved guilloche border, curvilinear armrest supports and a heavily fluted seat frame with a serpentine front, mounted on naturalistically carved lion’s legs in a cornerstone position.

Purchased with the assistance of the Brigadier Clark Fund through Art Fund

In his design of the first floor rooms of Spencer House, James Stuart took responsibility for every detail from fixtures to furniture. The set of five chairs formed an integral part of the design of the Painted Room, arguably the most important interior at Spencer House and among the earliest fully-developed neoclassical interiors in Europe. The bold design of the chairs employed decorative details derived from ancient architectural motifs and corresponded to other aspects of the room’s design. For example, the flutes on the seat rail compliment those on the door architraves, which were derived from the frieze of a ruin at Salonica called the Incantada (Weber Soros, p. 434). The six chairs stood in the four window recesses and on either side of the main door into the room. In the 1772 publication Tour Through the Southern Counties, Arthur Young describes the Painted Room, noting that ‘the frames of the tables, sofas, stand etc. are all carved and gilt in the same taste as the other ornaments of the room, rich but elegant’ (p. 114).

Purchased in 1977 from Earl Spencer [RF/1976/2628]. On long-term loan to Spencer House since 1993.

This style of chair has proved to have enduring appeal. In February 2024, furniture-makers Brights of Nettlebed were advertising a reproduction chair of similar design, calling it ‘The James Giltwood Chair’.

Production of the suite of seat furniture for the Painted Room has been attributed to the partnership of John Gordon and John Taitt, well-known London cabinet makers (Friedman, p. 187; Thornton & Hardy, p. 450). The original upholstery was green damask with brass tacks. In 1772 the firm of Gordon & Taitt provided loose, crimson covers for the set.

This armchair is part of a set of seat furniture made for the Painted Room at Spencer House, London. The design is exceptionally bold, with lion legs at both back and front. James Stuart, the architect who designed the house and many of its furnishings was one of the first architects in Britain to work in the new Neoclassical style. For the Painted Room he had the walls painted with arabesques and oval panels, imitating the style of decoration found during the archaeological excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii. His design for the seat furniture probably took its inspiration from Greek and Roman thrones in stone. These often showed seats with legs and arms as mythical beasts.

This seat furniture is now once more on show at Spencer House, see references.

W.6-1977