A pair of carved giltwood and gesso armchairs

in the manner of Linnell

This pair of chairs, designed in the French cabriolet taste, are close in design to the work of the Berkeley Square cabinet-maker, John Linnell. Much of Linnell's work derived inspiration in the third quarter of the 18th century from the designs of the fashionable architect Jean-Charles Delafosse who published Nouvelle Iconologie Historique in 1768. The acanthus-wrapped legs on the current example relate it to a Delafosse design for a Chaise a la Cabriolet reproduced in H. Hayward and P. Kirkham,  William and John Linnell, London, 1980, fig. 78, while the overall form of the chairs corresponds to examples supplied by Linnell to clients such as the Duke of Argyll at Inveraray Castle and the Gobelin tapestry suite supplied to Robert Child for Osterley Park, see H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, (ibid) figs. 89, 90 and 92.