A set of six parcel-gilt painted open armchairs circa 1780, in the manner of John Linnell

By repute, the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon, Pixton Park, near Dulverton, Somerset and thence by descent to the present vendor.

The offered lot forms part of a much larger suite of seat furniture of which various pieces have appeared previously on the market.  A set of six armchairs identical to the offered lot and with matching needlework, was sold designated `The Property of the Right Honourable the Earl of Harewood', Christie's London, 23 May 1968, lot 107, and was then attributed to Thomas Chippendale. A further pair of giltwood armchairs of identical design to the offered lot again with the same needlework covers are illustrated in Lanto Synge, Mallett Millenium, 157, pl.190 where they are also given a Harewood House Provenance but it is also suggested  that they may have come from a Lascelles London house of about 1770.

The Lascelles family owned a London house called Harewood House in Hanover Square which had formerly been known as Roxburghe House and which they occupied from 1795 to 1895. In 1922 Lord Lascelles, son of the sixth Earl of Harewood bought Chesterfield House.  Lord Lascelles is known to have made acquisitions for the house and it would seem more likely that they were acquired by him around this time.

A photograhic record of the interiors of Chestefield House was taken by Country Life by H. Avray Tipping shortly after Lord Lascelles acquisition of the house and again in 1931 presumably when he had decided to sell it. Two chairs identical to the chairs in the offered lot with the same needlework covers are shown in one of these photographs of the drawing room of Chesterfield House and can be seen in John Cornforth, London Interiors from the Archives of Country Life, p.104, published 2000.

Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Linnell, vol. 2, pp.34 and 127, figs. 61 and 250 illustrate a chair and a sofa which have strong enough stylistic similarities to suggest a Linnell attribution. However both Linnell and Chippendale were adept at blending Neo-Classical with rococo elements which can be seen in the offered lot. Chippendale included ten designs for `French' chairs in his third edition of the Director ( 1762 pl. XIX-XXIII). He stated that  both the 'Back and seat  must be covered with Tapestry, or other sort of Needlework', as can be seen in the offered lot.