Chair thumbnail 1
Not on display

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 18th century 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 more 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 of carved and turned beechwood, japanned in green and white to imitate bamboo, with upholstery of painted rush
Physical description
Chair of turned, carved and painted beechwood, simulating bamboo, painted in white adn green,the seat upholstered with rush and painted in stripes
Dimensions
  • Height: 94cm
  • Width: 51.5cm
  • Depth: 47.6cm
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 the widowed 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.
Association
Summary
This chair is one of five from a villa at Hampton, on the River Thames to the west of London. In the 18th century 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 more 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
  • Included in the travelling exhibition, 'The Rural Chair', created by the Circulation Department, V&A, 1974. The handlist records of this chair: '10. 'ROUT' CHAIR OF BEECHWOOD SIMULATING BAMBOO. Openwork back of inter-lacing bands. Rush seat, slightly tapering legs. Painted green and white. Formerly owned by the celebrated actor David Garrick (1717-79), in the Chinese Drawing Room of whose rural retreat at Hampton a set of six were recorded in an inventory of 1779. The set, five of which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, may have been made by Thomas Chippendale, who supplied a great deal of green and white furniture for Garrick's villa. Probably made in the 1970s.'
  • 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.28-1917

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Record createdDecember 17, 2003
Record URL
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