Chair
attributed to Gillows of Lancaster
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1820 - circa 1830
Materials
Mahogany, wool damask
Measurements
85 x 46.5 x 51 cm
Place of origin
Lancaster or London
Order this imageCollection
The Argory, County Armagh
NT 563728.9.1
Summary
A chair, one of a set of ten mahogany chairs, English, circa 1820 - 1830, almost certainly by Gillows of Lancaster or Gillow & Co., of Oxford Street, London. Apart from the seats being fitted with drop-in seats, rather than with canework and squab cushions, these chairs are identical to a set of rosewood chairs, all with the impressed mark 'PRESTON', at Belton House, Lincolnshire [NT 435014.1 - .12]. With a concave toprail carved with tendrils and a palmette, above a horizontal and bead-carved splat, with foliate-wrapped ends. The seat pad later upholstered in crimson wool damask. The front seat rail carved with a palmette; the front legs turned, tapering and reeded and headed by anthemion. -- These chairs are attributed to Gillows on the basis of their similarity to other examples which bear the impressed mark 'GILLOWS' [Stuart, Vol. I, pp. 221 - 223]. Gillows supplied other furniture to The Argory in the late 1820s, shortly after the house was finished circa 1824. See, for instance, a pair of window seats, believed to be by Gillows and signed 'David Sutherland 1828' [NT 563661.1 - .2], and the set of chairs in the Dining Room [NT 563745.1 - .13]. Other furniture in the Dining Room was acquired by Walter McGeough from James Whyte & Son of Glasgow in 1827.
Provenance
Given by Walter Albert Nevill MacGeough Bond (1907 - 1986) in 1979.
Makers and roles
attributed to Gillows of Lancaster , cabinetmaker
References
Stuart, Susan 'Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730 - 1840' (2008) 2 vols., Vol. I, pp. 221 - 3