A pair of George II polychrome painted hall chairs.

Note: The chairs retain virtually all the original painted decoration, with very minor conservation.

The painted crest on the back of the chairs is that of Nicholas Leke, 4th Earl of Scarsdale. Recent research published by the Furniture History Society has linked these important chairs with the now ruined mansion of Sutton Scarsdale, Derbyshire, England, which was lavishly furnished between 1728 and 1730 by the 4th and last Earl of Scarsdale. At that time it was described as one of the most beautiful mansions in the country, but Leke’s extravagant spending soon led to financial difficulties.

When the Earl died in 1736 without an heir, the heavily indebted estate passed to his illegitimate son Nicholas who assumed the name Leke. He was unable to maintain such a large mansion, however, and eventually the house and most of its contents were sold to settle some of the late Earl’s debts, although some of the furniture and the family paintings were transferred to Yaxley Hall in Suffolk, where they remained in the family until the early 1900s.

The agent and broker Edmund Farrer sold on behalf of the Leke family the famous Scarsdale suite of seat furniture to the London decorating company White & Allom. The suite originally consisted of two settees, twelve chairs and two pedestals. In an article published in 1908, Farrer describes the suite in some detail, and also mentions hall chairs with the family crest painted on them.

In 1910 the suite was damaged in a fire at the Exposition Universelle in Brussels, and in 1921 was again damaged by fire in the Fifth Avenue apartment in New York of Annie C. Kane. Both settees, four chairs and one pedestal were lost as a result. To make up the numbers, copies of the original pieces were made by White & Allom. The original remainder of the suite is now dispersed in collections on both sides of the Atlantic. A pair of chairs and a pedestal are in the Frick Collection in New York, another pair of chairs is part of the Untermyer Bequest at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a single chair is in the Cooper Hewitt Museum in Brooklyn and a further pair of chairs are in the collection at Temple Newsam, Yorkshire, England.

The pair of hall chairs featured here appeared a short time ago on the American market.