On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

Chair

1786-1794 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This chair is one of five from a villa at Hampton, on the River Thames to the west of London. In the 1700s the villa belonged to the famous actor David Garrick and his wife. From about 1768 they commissioned furnishings from the well-known firm of Thomas Chippendale of St Martin’s Lane in London. Chippendale provided light, pretty, painted furniture, suited to a house that was designed for leisure and entertaining. An inventory made in 1779 recorded ‘six rush bottom Bamboo Chairs’ in the drawing room. Although these chairs match that description, they were probably made slightly later. In 1786 and again in 1794 the widowed Mrs Garrick bought chairs like this from at least two different suppliers

Object details

Category
Object type
Materials and techniques
Turned, carved and painted beech, imitating bamboo, the seat filled with painted rush
Brief description
Chair, one of a set of five. of turned and carved and painted in green and white to imitate bamboo, with upholstery of painted rush.
Physical description
Chair of turned, carved and painted beechwood, simulating bamboo, the back of interlaced uprights forming Gothic arches; the seat of rush, painted with stripes
Dimensions
  • Height: 94cm
  • Width: 51.5cm
  • Depth: 49cm
Style
Credit line
Acquired through the generosity of H.E.Trevor, Esq., with the co-operation of some admirers of David Garrick
Object history
These chairs (W.25-29-1917) are related to the furniture supplied by Thomas Chippendale to David Garrick and his wife between 1768 and 1778 and for many years it was assumed that they came from Chippendale's workshop. However, in January-July 1786 Mrs Garrick was commissioning furniture from Charles Smith & Co., of Lower Grosvenor Street, London, including a set of six japanned chairs with rush seats, at a cost of £3.18s. In 1794, Mrs Garrick also bought '6 Neat Cottage Chairs with rush seats, moulded japann'd Bamboo' at a cost of 10/- each.

The chairs were part of a large donation of furniture from Garrick's bedroom (plus an additional press bed).Inventory numbers W.21 to W.32-1917. The bed had already been donated to the Museum (W.70-1916). In 1994 the Museum was also give one of the pair of small bookcases from this room (W.14-1994).

See Registered File 89/1363.

Similar striped decoration is shown on a rush-seated chair in George Morland's stipple engraving 'The Farmer's Visit to his Married Daughter in Town', 1780.
Production
This set of chairs (W.25-29-1917) were traditionally attributed to Chippendale, with the rest of the suite of furniture for Garrick (see W.70-1916, W.22-1917 to W.32-1917 and W.14-1994). However, Garrick's widow's accounts show deliveries of rush-seated chairs from Charles Smith & Co. in 1786 and from Pratt's of Kingston in 1794
Subject depicted
Summary
This chair is one of five from a villa at Hampton, on the River Thames to the west of London. In the 1700s the villa belonged to the famous actor David Garrick and his wife. From about 1768 they commissioned furnishings from the well-known firm of Thomas Chippendale of St Martin’s Lane in London. Chippendale provided light, pretty, painted furniture, suited to a house that was designed for leisure and entertaining. An inventory made in 1779 recorded ‘six rush bottom Bamboo Chairs’ in the drawing room. Although these chairs match that description, they were probably made slightly later. In 1786 and again in 1794 the widowed Mrs Garrick bought chairs like this from at least two different suppliers
Associated objects
Bibliographic references
  • Elizabeth White, ''Polished Perches: The Evidence for English Painted Wooden Furniture in Eighteenth-Century Gardens', in Painted Wood: History and Conservation. Proceedings of a Symposium organized by the Wooden Artifacts Group of the American Institute for Cosnervation of Historic and Artistic Works, Williamsburg, Virginia, November 1994, published by The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, 1998, pp. 128-142, this chair discussed on page 134 and in note 18.
  • John Boram, 'Eighteenth Century Fancy Chairs from High Wycombe', Regional Furniture XIII (1999), pp. 7-16, illustrates one of the chairs.
  • John Boram, 'The Domestic Context for Gillows' Rush- and Cane-Seated Chairs', Regional Furniture vol. XXIX (2015), pp. 47-100, mentioned on p. 57
  • Tomlin, Maurice, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture (London:HMSO for the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1972), cat. 0/4, p. 121.
  • Bowett, Adam, Wood in British Furniture-Making 1400-1900. An Illustrated Historical Dictionary (Wetherby: Oblong Creative Ltd. in association with the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9556576 7 2, p. 20, fig. B2
Collection
Accession number
W.27-1917

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Record createdDecember 17, 2003
Record URL
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