Description
Possibly by Thomas Roberts Each with a shaped arched rectangular padded back and seat covered in the original metal-thread-embroidered scarlet silk in geometric patterns on a pale-green silk ground, above a shaped conforming-covered apron, on scrolled legs joined by a waved cross-stretcher, with scrolled feet, each inscribed in crayon three times '1253', one chair with three legs, the stretcher and the back apron replaced, the other with the stretcher replaced and later blocks and the back apron missing, the webbing original 511/2 in. (131 cm.) high; 221/2 in. (57 cm.) wide; 201/2 in. (52 cm.) depth of seat (2) PROVENANCE Probably supplied to Thomas Coningsby (1656-1729), created 1st Lord Coningsby in 1692 and Earl of Coningsby in 1719, for Hampton Court Leominster, Herefordshire and by descent at Hampton Court to his daughter Frances (d. 1781), wife of Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, and by descent to their grandson George, Viscount Malden, later 5th Earl of Essex (d. 1839) and sold to Richard Arkwright (d. 1843) who acquired Hampton Court with many of its contents in 1810, and by descent to his son John Arkwright (d. 1858) and by descent in the Arkwright family until Hampton Court was sold in 1912, with many of its Coningsby contents to Mrs. Burrell. Acquired by Colonel Norman Colville, M.C., Penheale Manor, Cornwall and by descent. LITERATURE M. Jourdain, 'Late XVII and Early XVIII Century Chairs in the Collection of Captain Colville', Country Life, 20 October 1923, p. 553, fig. 6. R. Edwards, 'Penheale Manor House, Cornwall-II', Country Life, 4 April 1925, p. 529, fig. 9 (shown in situ in the Long Gallery). J. Cornforth, The Search for a Style, London, 1988, p. 203, pl. 194 ( in situ in the Long Gallery). NOTES THE DESIGN OF THE CHAIRS These elegantly scrolled chairs have silk damask upholstery that is filigreed with an appliqu‚ of scrolled ribbon 'galooning' and Roman acanthus in the Louis Quatorze 'Roman' fashion that was popularised by William III's French 'architect' Daniel Marot (d. 1752). Their pattern evolved from Upholders designs executed by Marot on his arrival at the Hague in the mid-1680s, and entry into the service of William, Prince of Orange, later William III. Marot engraved related chairs for pattern-books issued in 1702 and entitled Nouveaux Livre d' Appartements and Second Livre d'Appartements. The chair-backs are beribboned in a Roman mosaic manner, whose flowered lonzenge compartments may have been intended to recall the ornament of Rome's Temple of Venus, celebrated by Antoine Desgodetz's publication on Roman architecture in 1682. The volute-scrolls of these compartments are also serpentined with hollowed corners in the French manner. Such mosaic ornament featured in Marot's published 'Imperialle' bed patterns, while the chairs' domed crestings and labrequined drapery appear in this pattern for a 'back-stool' chair and its en suite squab-stool, whose reed-framed seats are similarly supported on scrolled console-truss legs that are tied with scrolled stretchers. The sculpted frames of these chairs are also related to marot's published designs for goldsmiths' and carvers' work, which focused in particular on the fashionable 'pier sets' comprised of mirror, table and stands. The prototype for the chairs' appliqu‚ is likely to have been the upholstery and wall-hangings supplied for an apartment at Leicester House, London, and commissioned by Robert Sidney, 4th Earl of Leicester (d. 1702) around the time of his inheritance of the property in 1698. THE MAKER OF THE CHAIRS A possible maker of the chairs is Thomas Roberts (d. 1714), who received an appointment to the Royal Household in 1686, and traded at 'The Royal Chair' in Marylebone Street. Roberts and the upholsterer, Francis Lapierre, have also been credited with the manufacture of a suite of chairs, with related framed seats, that were supplied for William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire (d. 1707), another of William Talman's patrons (see G. Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishing in England, London, 1997, p. 133, fig. 110). THE COMMISSION The Hampton Court chairs were almost certainly commissioned at the same time as the Hampton Court blue damask bed and the accompanying pier table. This bed, with its stately swagged drapery, was embellished in the 'antique' manner with Roman acanthus and antique reed embellishments alluding to Pan, the Arcadian fertility deity. The bed's temple-pedimented head-board, also richly scrolled in the 'picturesque' fashion, was displayed beneath a flowered and reed-gadrooned baldachino, whose 'angel' tester canopy had flying drapery 'cantonnieres' in the Louis Quatorze manner (the bed, which has been reduced in height, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Likewise the golden frame of the accompanying pier table was framed with reed-gadroons, and supported on serpentined truss pilasters that were voluted in the lonic manner (H. Avray Tipping, 'Furniture of the XVII and XVIII Centuries - Furniture at Hampton Court, near Leominster - 1', Country Life, 18 November 1911, p. 753). In a similar manner, the reed-moulded frames of these chairs are accompanied by plinth-supported trusses. In addition, their lambrequined drapery is hung with acanthus buds, while their voluted feet are carved with reeds that are pearled with acanthus beads. The silk damask may have been supplied by William Portal, who supplied similar damask for William III's Presence Chamber at Hampton Court, Hereford. It was to this crimson damask bed that J. Williams referred in The Leominster Guide of 1808: 'One of the apartments, which is furnished in a splendid manner, with crimson damask hangings and a bed and canopy of the same, remains in precisely the same state as when used by William III, who here visited Thomas Baron Coningsby, a nobleman particuarly distinguished for his bravery at the Battles of the Boyne and Aghrim, in Ireland'. The crimson damask bed is now in the Het Loo Palace. THE PATRON - THOMAS CONINGSBY, EARL OF CONINGSBY Thomas Coningsby (d. 1729) was among those who assisted William III in his accession to the English throne in 1688. He served as his Paymaster General of forces in Ireland, and was elected to the Privy Council in 1693. His Irish barony, as Baron of Clanbrassil, was granted in 1692 and in 1719 he was created Earl of Coningsby. Like his father-in-law, Lord Ranelagh, Coningsby was a patron of the court architect William Talman (d. 1719), who had been appointed Comptroller of the Royal Works in 1689. It is possible that such architectural furniture, such as the crimson damask bed, was carried out under the inspiration of Talman, since Italianate scrolled trusses were a favoured motif of his architecture. HAMPTON COURT, HEREFORDSHIRE The great medieval manor house of the Lenthalls was bought by Sir Humphry Coningsby in about 1510. His descendant, Thomas Coningsby, 1st Earl of Coningsby, carried out alterations both to the house and the gardens, much of which is recorded in the ariel views by Knyff and Edward Stevens ( circa 1700) and the North elevation in Vitruvius Britannicus. After Lord Coningsby's death in 1729, the house remained in the family and eventually passed to the 5th Earl of Essex, who carried out further alterations to the house in the fashionable 'Gothick' style. In 1810 Hampton Court was sold to John Arkwright, grandson of the famous industrialist, Sir Richard Arkwright, and it underwent further transformations in the 1830s under the guidance of William and John Atkinson and Charles Hanbury Tracy, later 1st Lord Sudeley. In 1912, the house and its contents were sold to Mrs. Burrell, and it was then sold again to Viscountess Hereford in 1924. THE LATTER HISTORY OF THE CHAIRS It is not known exactly when the present pair of chairs entered the Colville colleciton, however one of the chairs was illustrated in Margaret Jourdain's article, 'Late XVII and Early XVIII Century Chairs in the Collection of Captain Colville', published in Country Life, 20 October 1923 (p. 553, fig. 6) and the pair are clearly seen in the Long Gallery at Penheale Manor when it was photographed by Country Life for an article on 4 April 1925 (p. 529, fig. 8). Neither of the present chairs appear in the 18th November - 9th December 1911 Country Life articles on furniture at Hampton Court. However there is mention of furniture being rescued from store-rooms, so it is possible they were purchased by Colonel Colville directly from the Arkwrights circa 1912 when they were emptying the store-rooms or when the house was sold to Mrs. Burrell. To add to the confusion, Margaret Jourdain refers to a 'single chair', rather than a pair. She is either referring to the fact that it was not an armchair, or Colonel Colville only had one of the chairs when the article was written in 1923. Three chairs, possibly from the same set, were sold by Knight, Frank and Rutley at their sale of the contents of Hampton Court, 16-20 March 1925. They were listed as lot 390: 'A set of 3 Carolean chairs, high stuffed over backs and seats in arabesque challis. On painted scroll shaped legs and cross stretcher'. In 1911 Avray Tipping was particularly enthused by the so-called 'King's Bedroom' (25 November, pp. 787-791) which contained a red damask tester bed, and a supporting cast of chairs and mirrors. When Jonathan Williams described the house for his Leominster Guide of 1808, he wrote that 'One of the apartments, which is furnished in a splendid manner with crimson damask hangings and a bed and canopy of the same, remains in precisely the same state as when used by William III...' It is all too easy to assume from this entry, and the 1911 Country Life photographs ( ibid., p. 791) of the same bed and chairs, that the King's Bedroom remained the same throughout the 19th Century. However, it did not and what was photographed was an antiquarian reconstruction, suggesting that furniture had emerged from attics by 1911. In the photographs the red damask tester bed is flanked by upholstered chairs but also by two non-matching pier-glasses, of a type used in the late 17th Century only on window-piers, making a highly implausible arrangement. There is also direct evidence that this room was a late 19th Century caprice. In the 1858 inventory, the only inventory to survive among the Arkwright Coningsby papers in Hereford Record Office, neither the King's Bedroom, nor its supposed late 17th Century contents, is recorded in that inventory. There are other implications in Tipping's article that around 1911 the Arkwright family was displaying a new interest in the contents of their attics, with an upholstered settee which 'had found its way into an attic before it was recently bought down the drawing-room'. Tipping writes of the second blue damask state bed (now in the Metropolitan Museum), and a bed from a neighbouring house, 'The Holme Lacy bed long lay in tatters in a lumber room, and from the same sort of hospital for dusty cast-offs Lord Coningsby's (i.e. The Hampton Court) blue bed was rescued a few months ago.' The 1858 inventory is extremely thorough in the parts of the house it covered and it is inconceivable that it would not include either bed or any upholstered late 17th Century chairs, unless they were deeply buried in the attics of the hosue. If the two great beds were to be unrecorded, it seems entirely possible that this pair of chairs should be as well, and that Colonel Colville was quite correct. Further evidence that Colonel Colville acquired furniture from Hampton Court and did so before the 1925 Knight, Frank and Rutley sale, was the presence in his collection of a late 17th Century walnut caned armchair, whose pierced cresting bears interlaced C's for Thomas Coningsby, 1st Baron Coningsby and 1st Earl of Coningsby. The chair was illustrated both in Margaret Jourdain's 1923 article on chairs in Captain Colville's collection ( op. cit., p. 552, fig. 3) and in Ralph Edwards' 1930 article on chairs at Penheale Manor ( op. cit., p. 571, fig. 7). In Edwards' article the chair was captioned 'Formerly at Hampton Court, Leominster'. A detailed report on the original upholstery is available on request.
