A pair of hall armchairs George III

The backs of the present armchairs closely follow a design for a hall chair published in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd edition, 1762, pl XVII.

Other hall chairs related to this pattern are in the collection of the Earls of Pembroke at Wilton House, Salisbury, Wiltshire: Thomas  Chippendale is recorded as having supplied furniture at Wilton in the 1760s, most famously the Violin bookcase in the large smoking room.

A set of four similar hall chairs with provenance from the Viscountess Davenport were sold from the Samuel Messer Collection, Christie's London, 5 December 1991, lot 59 and also a pair with similarities from Sotheby's Fawley House, Oxfordshire, 14-15 October 2003, lot 77.