Chair, carved and gilded walnut, with green velvet cover trimmed with silk braid, Britain, ca. 1732

Chair, the back rectangular with rounded top corners; cabriole front legs and raked cabriole back legs ending in paw feet, the top of the legs carved with lion masks; the deep seat rails with curved aprons, the front rail carved in the centre with a satyr mask, the side rails each with a shell, all flanked by scrolling foliage. Covered in green silk velvet.

The legs and seat facings of walnut, oil-gilded, partly over a sanded ground; beech seat frame (and probably beech back frame). Loose cover of green silk velvet, edged with silk braid; structural upholstery of linen webbing, linen (ticking) base cloth, horsehair stuffing, and linen stuffing-covers (the webbing and base cloth visible only in the seat).

This chair is fitted with a 'scarf' (an early form of antimacassar), stitched to the top of the back, with the fabric placed widthways and the selvages at top and bottom. The width of the fabric (height on this chair) is 54.5 cm (21½ inches). Originally the scarf would have hung loose from the top, but this fabric has been stitched to the sides as well as to the top. Furthermore, this piece of silk appears not to be the original scarf for this chair: Remains of an original scarf -- in the same fabric -- can be seen along the top edge, as on most other chairs in this set. This piece of silk is also longer than would have been needed for this chair; if not stitched down it would overlap the ends, but it has been folded away underneath. So this piece is probably the original scarf to one of the armchairs, or cut down from one of the settees, and may have been transferred to this chair in some antiquarian phase of restoration.

Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum

Though very different in style from the burr-walnut and gilt chairs at Houghton, the use of the same ticking base cloth (collated between W.2-2002 and W.27-2002) suggests that they were made -- or at least upholstered -- in the same workshop, and quite close to each other in date. The burr-walnut and gilt suite has been attributed to Thomas Roberts junior, on the strength of his single surviving bill to Robert Walpole of c. 1729, which mainly relates to furniture supplied for Walpole's London houses (but which includes the supply of caffoy for the Saloon at Houghton). The difference in style is probably explicable in terms of the burr-walnut and gilt suite being made to suit the pre-existing embroidered bed; and in the present state of knowledge it seems reasonable to suppose that both suites were manufactured and upholstered entirely in one workshop, most likely that of Thomas Roberts junior.

This chair belongs to the large set commissioned by Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first prime minister, for the State Apartment at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. The house was built between 1722 and 1735, and the State Apartment was furnished by about 1732. The seat furniture is carved naturalistically with lion’s masks and legs, and gilded on a ground made gritty with sand. The loose covers are of green velvet, to match the State Bed designed by William Kent (Museum no. W.58-2002). This chair has the remains of a ‘scarf’ fixed to the outside-back – a panel of green silk which would originally have been sewn only to the top of the chair. Normally it would have hung down the back, but if somebody should sit in the chair the scarf could be flipped over the front, so as to protect the velvet from hair powder.
Although this set of chairs is very different in style from the suite in the Second State Apartment at Houghton (Museum no. W.9-2002), it may be by the same maker, possibly Thomas Roberts junior. The same rather distinctive striped ticking is used for the upholstery foundation.

W.30:1, 2-2002