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拍品專文
This refined giltwood sofa by Chippendale is marked in its similarity to his documented seat-furniture, particularly at Burton Constable, Yorkshire, where Chippendale describes his furniture as: ‘done in a neat but not an expensive manner’ (1). Its graceful serpentine form is closely related to a pair of sofas supplied in circa 1778 to William Constable (1721-91) for the Great Drawing Room at Burton Constable, Yorkshire (2). These were part of a larger suite, as undoubtedly the present example was, comprising sixteen armchairs, two bergères, and four smaller sofas. While the moulded frame of the present sofa is less ornately carved, it features four near-identical turned and reeded legs, with toupie feet and the same splayed back legs with scroll feet; the front supports recalling what is described as the ‘flare-topped’ leg, also found on a pair of commodes supplied by Chippendale to Constable for Mansfield Street, London in 1774, for which an invoice survives, and on the ‘Weeping Women’ commode at Stourhead, Wiltshire, attributed to Chippendale, father and son (3). The carving on this sofa is shallow suggesting it was perhaps originally painted in the same way as the Burton Constable sofas, which were initially ‘japanned’ blue and white. Although no bill survives for furniture for the Great Drawing Room at Burton Constable, the steward’s account book records on 19 October 1778: ‘Mr Chippendale on Acct of Furniture for the Drawing Room £300’. A further payment of £6 6s was received the same day by Chippendale’s foreman, William Reid, and in March 1779, Constable instructed Mr. Bolt in Gray’s Inn to pay the Chippendale firm £800 for works undertaken up to 30 December 1778 (4).
Chippendale also supplied another suite of ‘japanned’ furniture probably for Mansfield Street; in 1774, an account was submitted for £627 3s 5d for furniture for an enfilade of three apartments – a bedchamber, ante-room and drawing-room. As this account did not include packing charges or travelling expenses, Christopher Gilbert has argued that the furniture contained therein was most likely for London. Furthermore, when Constable vacated Mansfield Street in 1784, Chippendale Junior packed and dispatched twenty-five crates of furniture to Burton Constable (5). This suite comprised twelve cabriole armchairs and a pair of sofas; as it was intended for the drawing room, it was given superior status by the addition of parcel-gilt decoration and upholstered in blue damask. Only one of the sofas was listed in the above cited bill showing that the Constable accounts are unfortunately incomplete. In the 1830s, as part of a Regency refurbishment of Burton Constable, this suite of seat-furniture was gilded by Thomas Ward.
The ribbon tie and husk cresting on the back rail of this sofa is closely comparable to carving found on sofas supplied to George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837), for whom extensive accounts survive, for Petworth House, West Sussex; only one sofa and twelve chairs are extant at Petworth today (6). This suite, originally covered in ‘Rich Crimson & White Silk Damask’, was invoiced by Chippendale on 9 January 1777, and consisted of:
-’22 Neat Carv’d – Cabriole Arm’d Chairs, Gilt in Burnish’d Gold, Stuffd, Cover’d and finishd with Gilt Nails (Exclusive of the Damask) @ £5.5s – 115.10s
-2 very Large Confidants… Carv’d to match the Chairs and Gilt in Burnish’d Gold…£52.10
-2 large Carv’d Sofas to match, Gilt in Burnish’d Gold, Stuffd, Coverd, and finish’d with Gilt Nails Squabs and Downe Bolsters Compleat (exclusive of Damask) £38
-2 long Stools for the windows…’
Another pair of sofas, again with ribbon cresting, with eight armchairs en suite, circa 1778, and originally giltwood although now white-painted and parcel-gilt, is at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire (7). Made for Sir Rowland Winn, probably for the Saloon, they relate to the Petworth suite and thus to the present example. The Nostell Priory suite has been attributed to Chippendale because it conforms ‘exactly to one of the firm's standard designs’ (8). The exciting discovery of unrecorded estate papers in 1990, which detail ‘the final phase of Chippendale's commission’ at Nostell between 1774 and 1785 (when work was undertaken on the Saloon, Drawing Room and probably the Top Hall) that had ‘hitherto only been sketchily documented’, discusses eight chairs and two matching sofas intended for the Saloon (9). These ‘new’ letters show that Chippendale was at Nostell in 1774 measuring the Drawing Room and the Saloon. In June 1774, he wrote to Sir Rowland Winn: ‘I have sent…by the York coach a small case contain’g a section of the Saloon with designs of the furniture which has been settled by Mr Adams and myself & he totally approves of everything therein sketched’ (10).
A suite of seat-furniture, ‘8 Very neat open back Chairs to be Japann'd & Seats covered with Green Taberay / 2 Large Sofas to match’, recorded in correspondence dated 30 June 1781 from Chippendale's firm to Winn, was mostly completed by 1778-9, but the patron either lost interest or found himself unable to pay for furnishings, which together (including the Drawing Room) came to £570 (11). He was already heavily in debt to Chippendale's firm, and so the furniture remained in London.
Another pair of related sofas, forming part of a suite with eight armchairs (later increased to include thirteen single chairs in two sizes and a pair of bergères), was supplied to Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of George III, and is in the Royal Collection at Clarence House, represents Chippendale’s only Royal commission. Chippendale was not attached to the Great Wardrobe and although he boasted in 1768 to Sir Rowland Winn that he had ‘a great quantity of unexpected business . . . mostly for the Royal Family’, the evidence for this was thought to be confined to the fact that some copies of the 3rd edition of The Director (1762) bore a dedication to the Duke of Gloucester. Despite no evidence of another Chippendale Royal commission, payments to Chippendale totalling £134 15s 6d have been discovered in the only surviving portion of the Duke of Gloucester’s bank account, covering the years 1764-6. These payments are too early to relate to the Duke of Gloucester suite, which must date to the early 1770s. It was probably commissioned by the Duke for his London residence, Gloucester House, Park Lane, or for one of his country seats in the environs of Windsor - St Leonard’s Hill, Cranbourne Lodge or Bagshot Park, Surrey. There is another sofa in the National Trust collection at Basildon Park, which is very similar to the Clarence House example (12).
All the above examples, excepting the Burton Constable sofas, feature a more pronounced serpentine back than the sofa offered here. The dimensions of the sofas described above all differ slightly, evidently because they were part of commissions intended for particular rooms for Chippendale’s individual patrons.
(1) C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 169.
(2) J. Goodison, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior, London, 2017, p. 365, fig. 185.
(3) D. Dodd, L. Wood, ‘The “Weeping Women” Commode and other orphaned furniture at Stourhead by the Chippendales, Senior and Junior’, Furniture History, 2011, pp. 58-62.
(4) Goodison, op. cit., p. 156.
(5) Gilbert, op. cit., vol. I, p. 276.
(6) Goodison, op. cit., p. 180; p. 363, figs. 181, 2; NT 483451.7 and NT 483451.1-6.
(7) Gilbert, op. cit., vol. II, p. 198, fig. 361; NT 959736.9-10 and NT 959736.1-7.
(8) Ibid., vol. I, p. 173.
(9) C. Gilbert, ‘New Light on the Furnishing of Nostell Priory’, Furniture History, 1990, pp. 53, 58.
(10) Ibid., pp. 59-60.
(11) Ibid., p. 60.
(12) NT 266682.
THE GILDING
The sofa has a single layer of water gilding from the 18th or 19th century. The gesso is laid on in thin layers, with natural clay and then gold leaf, lacking the yellow layer. While there is no evidence of any earlier decorative scheme, which would support the gilding being 18th century, the sofa was possibly originally painted and then thoroughly cleaned. This theory is supported by the shallow turning on the feet disguised by gesso and, in this case, the gilding could then be 19th century.
Chippendale also supplied another suite of ‘japanned’ furniture probably for Mansfield Street; in 1774, an account was submitted for £627 3s 5d for furniture for an enfilade of three apartments – a bedchamber, ante-room and drawing-room. As this account did not include packing charges or travelling expenses, Christopher Gilbert has argued that the furniture contained therein was most likely for London. Furthermore, when Constable vacated Mansfield Street in 1784, Chippendale Junior packed and dispatched twenty-five crates of furniture to Burton Constable (5). This suite comprised twelve cabriole armchairs and a pair of sofas; as it was intended for the drawing room, it was given superior status by the addition of parcel-gilt decoration and upholstered in blue damask. Only one of the sofas was listed in the above cited bill showing that the Constable accounts are unfortunately incomplete. In the 1830s, as part of a Regency refurbishment of Burton Constable, this suite of seat-furniture was gilded by Thomas Ward.
The ribbon tie and husk cresting on the back rail of this sofa is closely comparable to carving found on sofas supplied to George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837), for whom extensive accounts survive, for Petworth House, West Sussex; only one sofa and twelve chairs are extant at Petworth today (6). This suite, originally covered in ‘Rich Crimson & White Silk Damask’, was invoiced by Chippendale on 9 January 1777, and consisted of:
-’22 Neat Carv’d – Cabriole Arm’d Chairs, Gilt in Burnish’d Gold, Stuffd, Cover’d and finishd with Gilt Nails (Exclusive of the Damask) @ £5.5s – 115.10s
-2 very Large Confidants… Carv’d to match the Chairs and Gilt in Burnish’d Gold…£52.10
-2 large Carv’d Sofas to match, Gilt in Burnish’d Gold, Stuffd, Coverd, and finish’d with Gilt Nails Squabs and Downe Bolsters Compleat (exclusive of Damask) £38
-2 long Stools for the windows…’
Another pair of sofas, again with ribbon cresting, with eight armchairs en suite, circa 1778, and originally giltwood although now white-painted and parcel-gilt, is at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire (7). Made for Sir Rowland Winn, probably for the Saloon, they relate to the Petworth suite and thus to the present example. The Nostell Priory suite has been attributed to Chippendale because it conforms ‘exactly to one of the firm's standard designs’ (8). The exciting discovery of unrecorded estate papers in 1990, which detail ‘the final phase of Chippendale's commission’ at Nostell between 1774 and 1785 (when work was undertaken on the Saloon, Drawing Room and probably the Top Hall) that had ‘hitherto only been sketchily documented’, discusses eight chairs and two matching sofas intended for the Saloon (9). These ‘new’ letters show that Chippendale was at Nostell in 1774 measuring the Drawing Room and the Saloon. In June 1774, he wrote to Sir Rowland Winn: ‘I have sent…by the York coach a small case contain’g a section of the Saloon with designs of the furniture which has been settled by Mr Adams and myself & he totally approves of everything therein sketched’ (10).
A suite of seat-furniture, ‘8 Very neat open back Chairs to be Japann'd & Seats covered with Green Taberay / 2 Large Sofas to match’, recorded in correspondence dated 30 June 1781 from Chippendale's firm to Winn, was mostly completed by 1778-9, but the patron either lost interest or found himself unable to pay for furnishings, which together (including the Drawing Room) came to £570 (11). He was already heavily in debt to Chippendale's firm, and so the furniture remained in London.
Another pair of related sofas, forming part of a suite with eight armchairs (later increased to include thirteen single chairs in two sizes and a pair of bergères), was supplied to Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of George III, and is in the Royal Collection at Clarence House, represents Chippendale’s only Royal commission. Chippendale was not attached to the Great Wardrobe and although he boasted in 1768 to Sir Rowland Winn that he had ‘a great quantity of unexpected business . . . mostly for the Royal Family’, the evidence for this was thought to be confined to the fact that some copies of the 3rd edition of The Director (1762) bore a dedication to the Duke of Gloucester. Despite no evidence of another Chippendale Royal commission, payments to Chippendale totalling £134 15s 6d have been discovered in the only surviving portion of the Duke of Gloucester’s bank account, covering the years 1764-6. These payments are too early to relate to the Duke of Gloucester suite, which must date to the early 1770s. It was probably commissioned by the Duke for his London residence, Gloucester House, Park Lane, or for one of his country seats in the environs of Windsor - St Leonard’s Hill, Cranbourne Lodge or Bagshot Park, Surrey. There is another sofa in the National Trust collection at Basildon Park, which is very similar to the Clarence House example (12).
All the above examples, excepting the Burton Constable sofas, feature a more pronounced serpentine back than the sofa offered here. The dimensions of the sofas described above all differ slightly, evidently because they were part of commissions intended for particular rooms for Chippendale’s individual patrons.
(1) C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 169.
(2) J. Goodison, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior, London, 2017, p. 365, fig. 185.
(3) D. Dodd, L. Wood, ‘The “Weeping Women” Commode and other orphaned furniture at Stourhead by the Chippendales, Senior and Junior’, Furniture History, 2011, pp. 58-62.
(4) Goodison, op. cit., p. 156.
(5) Gilbert, op. cit., vol. I, p. 276.
(6) Goodison, op. cit., p. 180; p. 363, figs. 181, 2; NT 483451.7 and NT 483451.1-6.
(7) Gilbert, op. cit., vol. II, p. 198, fig. 361; NT 959736.9-10 and NT 959736.1-7.
(8) Ibid., vol. I, p. 173.
(9) C. Gilbert, ‘New Light on the Furnishing of Nostell Priory’, Furniture History, 1990, pp. 53, 58.
(10) Ibid., pp. 59-60.
(11) Ibid., p. 60.
(12) NT 266682.
THE GILDING
The sofa has a single layer of water gilding from the 18th or 19th century. The gesso is laid on in thin layers, with natural clay and then gold leaf, lacking the yellow layer. While there is no evidence of any earlier decorative scheme, which would support the gilding being 18th century, the sofa was possibly originally painted and then thoroughly cleaned. This theory is supported by the shallow turning on the feet disguised by gesso and, in this case, the gilding could then be 19th century.