Not currently on display at the V&A

Chair

ca. 1732 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Great Britain (made)

Chair, the back rectangular with rounded top corners; cabriole front legs and heavily raked back legs terminating in paw feet, the top of the legs carved with lion masks; the deep seat rails curved in profile and carved in the centre front with a satyr mask and in the centre of the sides with shells, all flanked by scrolling foliage. Covered in green velvet.

Top covers of pale green (olive) silk velvet, trimmed with metal-thread braid -- loose cover, but now pinned once to left side, and possible elsewhere.
No trace of any scarf.
The seat foundation has 3½-chevron webbing, possibly of two different patterns, and a striped plain-weave base cloth (the warp-stripes running from front to back)

Object details

Category
Furniture
Object type
Chair
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Chair
  • Loose Cover
Materials and techniques
Legs and seat frame of beech, pine and walnut, oil gilded, partially over a sanded ground; cover of green silk velvet, edged with metal-thread braid; structural upholstery of linen, linen webbing and horsehair
Metal Thread
Silk (Textile)
Velvet
Beech
Pine
Walnut
Linen (Material)
Horsehair
Carving
Upholstery
Brief description
Chair, carved and gilded walnut, with mid-green velvet cover trimmed with metal-thread braid, Britain, ca. 1732
Physical description
Chair, the back rectangular with rounded top corners; cabriole front legs and heavily raked back legs terminating in paw feet, the top of the legs carved with lion masks; the deep seat rails curved in profile and carved in the centre front with a satyr mask and in the centre of the sides with shells, all flanked by scrolling foliage. Covered in green velvet.

Top covers of pale green (olive) silk velvet, trimmed with metal-thread braid -- loose cover, but now pinned once to left side, and possible elsewhere.
No trace of any scarf.
The seat foundation has 3½-chevron webbing, possibly of two different patterns, and a striped plain-weave base cloth (the warp-stripes running from front to back)
Dimensions
  • Maximum height: 98.5cm
  • Maximum, at front feet width: 67.5cm
  • At front knees width: 65cm
  • At front of seat width: 58cm
  • At back feet width: 56.5cm
  • At feet depth: 75cm
Dimensions taken late 2008, transcribed April 2009.
Credit line
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum
Bibliographic references
  • West, Annabel, Fringe, Frog and Tassel. The Art of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration in Britain and Ireland (London: Philip Wilson and the National Trust, 2019, ISBN 978 1 78130 075 6), pp. 97-98, fig. 5:13
  • Gill, Kathryn, 'Eighteenth-century close fitting detachable covers preserved at Houghton Hall: A techinical study', in Kathryn Gill and Dinah Eastop eds., Upholstery Conservation Principles and Practice (Oxford, 2001), pp. 133-144.
  • Susan Weber and Julius Bryant, eds. William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) p. 473, illustrates an image of a similar set at Downing Street
Collection
Furniture and Woodwork Collection
Accession number
W.27:1-2002

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Record createdApril 30, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O80355/chair-unknown/
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