THE GLEMHAM HALL GAINSBOROUGH ARMCHAIRS

A magnificent pair of George II mahogany library armchairs.
Note: The needlework was made in the 1750's by Lady Barbara, wife of Dudley North and daughter of the 8th Earl of Pembroke. Percy Macquoid inspected the original drawings by Lady Barbara in the early 1900's and published one of them in his seminal work ‘A History of English Furniture’ alongside a photograph of one of these chairs. Sadly these drawings were destroyed in a fire at Glemham in 1913.

Literature: Thomas Chippendale, ‘The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker’s Director’, 1st edition, 1754, pl. XVIII.
Thomas Chippendale, ‘The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker’s Director’, 3rd edition, 1762, pl. XXIII.
‘Georgian Art, Exhibition in aid of the Royal Northern Hospital’, London, 1931, p. 57; one chair of the set.
Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, ‘The Dictionary of English Furniture’, revised edition, 1954, vol. I, p. 288, fig. 197; one chair of the set.
Margaret Jourdain, ‘Georgian Cabinetmakers’, 3rd revised edition, 1955, p. 177, illus. 107; one chair of the set.
‘The Williamsburg Collection of Antique Furnishings’, 1973, p. 117; one chair of the set.
Christie’s, ‘Childwick Bury, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, Part I’, 15 May 1978, lot 123; a chair of the set.
Sotheby’s, ‘Important English Furniture’, New York, 25 January 1986, lot 162; a chair of the set.
Edward Lennox-Boyd (ed.), ‘Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection’, 1998, item 48, pls. 23 & 42; one chair of the set.
Illustrated:
Percy Macquoid, ‘A History of English Furniture’, vol. III, ‘The Age of Mahogany’, 1906, figs. 188-9; one of the pair illustrated and one of the designs for the needlework by Lady Barbara North.

Provenance

Supplied to Dudley North, Glemham Hall, Suffolk;
By descent to The Earls of Guilford;
Removed to Waldershare Park, Kent;
M. Harris & Sons, London, 1945;
Collection of Claude Leigh, West Riddins, Sussex;
Collection of Anthony Edgar, England, until 1996;
Corporate collection, New York, until 1999;
Private collection, New York.