A GEORGE II MAHOGANY LIBRARY ARMCHAIR, 18TH/19TH CENTURY

Viscount Downe, Wykeham Abbey, Scarborough, Yorskhire

Frank Partridge, London

Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

The Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Collection of English Furniture, Part Two, Parke-Bernet Galleries New York, 6-7 May 1960, lot 536

Sotheby's New York, 13 December 1986, lot 203

The design of this chair relates to a important suite of at least a dozen 'double mask' library armchairs with lion's heads terminals on the armrests and on the knees, first studied by R.W. Symonds, examples of which have passed through numerous important collections including Griffiths, Mulliner and Thursby Pelham, and more recently the Untermyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum and a pair from the Theodore and Ruth Baum Collection, sold Sotheby's New York 22 October 2004, lot 474. The armrest lion heads are also reminiscent of those on the library chairs attributed to Benjamin Goodison at Longford Castle, Wiltshire, although their particularly fierce character here appears to be unprecedented, and no other examples of this model have been recorded thus far.

Built on the side of a former Cistercian nunnery, Wykeham Abbey was constructed in the mid-18th century for Richard Hutchinson, whose grandson in 1817 bequeathed the estate to his cousin Marmaduke Dawnay, youngest son of the 4th Viscount Downe. It has remained in the Dawnay family since and became the seat of the Viscounts Downe in 1909. The house underwent considerable expansion in the 1830s with further additions in 1904.