A SET OF SIX GEORGE II WALNUT SIDE CHAIRS IN THE MANNER OF GILES GRENDEY, CIRCA 1735

Ginsberg & Levy, New York

Purchased for the Dining Room of the Van Cortlandt House by Mrs. Norbert C. Hansen, February 1971

This model of side chair with shell-carved knees, compass seats and scrolled crest rails was extremely popular during the in the early George II period of c.1725-40 and popularised by the workshop of the leading London cabinetmaker Giles Grendey (1693-1780). The first published reference to a shell-carved knee appears in an invoice sent by the London maker Thomas Roberts to Sir Robert Walpole in November 1728 for '12 fine Wallnuttree Chair Frames with Compass Seates a carved Shell on the Feet' (Adam Bowett, English Furniture, 1660–1714: From Charles II to Queen Anne, Woodbridge, England 2002, p.171-72).

The Van Cortlandt House is the oldest building in the borough of the Bronx, New York City, constructed in 1748 in the Georgian style by the wealthy merchant Frederick Van Cortlandt (1699–1749) on his family's plantation land in what was then a rural area. During the Revolutionary War it hosted the military leaders the Comte de Rochambeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington. In 1889 Van Cortlandt's descendants sold the house and estate to the city of New York and it became Van Cortlandt park, the house opening as a museum in 1897.