A Pair of George III Style Mahogany Armchairs

These armchairs are conceived in the Gothick manner which became popular in the middle of the 18th century in architecture such as at Arbury, Warwickshire, where an Elizabethan House was transformed by the architect Henry Keene for Sir Roger Newdigate, and the Vyne in Hampshire. Another house which was conceived in this manner was that of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, where the exotic interiors were decorated with suitable antiquarian works of art and furniture conceived in this manner, such as the set of tall japanned beechwood chairs with traceried backs and rush seats supplied by William Hallett in the early 1750s, one of these being in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. A number of leading cabinet makers produced related designs in this manner: Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd edition, 1763, Thomas Manwaring, Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion, 1765, and the Society of Upholsterers, Genteel Household Furniture in the Present Taste, 2nd edition, circa 1765; please see Elizabeth White, Pictorial Dictionary of British 18th Century Furniture Design - The Printed Sources, Woodbridge, 1990.

An armchair with an identical triple-arched Gothic tracery backrest and similar cluster-column legs, one of a set of twelve chairs, is shown in the drawing room Tissington Hall, Derbyshire, H. Avary Tipping, English Homes, vol. II, 1927, pl. 236.