A matched pair of George III mahogany sofas, circa 1770

By the eighteenth century, upholstery technology had become sophisticated enough to allow for long sofas with soft, cushioned arms that brought new levels of ease and comfort to an interior. Certainly it was widespread enough as a piece of furniture for Claude de Crébillon to write a scandalous novel in 1742 about a libertine called The Sofa: A Moral Tale, which Hogarth cheekily included in one of his Marriage A-la-Mode paintings later in the decade.

This pair of sofas are both of exactly the same design, and only differ in their construction and slightly in the treatment of the carving. This was a frequent occurrence in larger workshops in which separate workmen with individual styles would create matching pieces, and does not even imply that the sofas were necessarily made for different commissions or at different times. The design is also highly individual, not only in the foliate carving to the knees, but also the unexpected seat rail: while seat rails on sofas of this kind are often shaped or curved, the pleasing regularity of the double-ogee curves here is a rare sight. As for the fluid foliate carving to the knees, this is akin to the ornament on some of the seat furniture created by John Cobb; compare, for example, the chairs sold in these Rooms on 9th November 2021, lot 34 and on 18th November 2008, lot 63, both of which feature similar carving and were catalogued as being in the manner of Cobb.