Panel-back armchair
Category
Furniture
Date
1800 - 1899 (but with earlier elements)
Materials
Carved, turned and joined oak
Measurements
98 x 62 cm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire
NT 959709
Summary
An oak panel-back armchair, English, probably made in the 19th century from some 16th and 17th century pieces of timbers. The back with arched cresting formed from a pair of addorsed serpents, above a Mannerist panel of circa 1540, carved with an urn, a string of beads or pearls and pendant flowers in a foliate-carved frame. With downswept arms fixed to the boarded seat. The seat rails, legs and stretchers carved with foliage. --
Full description
Once thought to have come from the 17th century house at Nostell, surviving bills and receipts suggest that much of the oak furniture at Nostell Priory was in fact purchased by Charles Winn (1795 - 1874), who inherited a house with many rooms unfinished. An interested antiquarian, Winn chose to furnish some of the rooms, such as the Lower Hall, Vestibule and West Passage, with furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries. Payments were made by Winn to E. Terry of Thornes, near Wakefield, for 'sundry pieces of antique oak furniture' in 1834 and to John Swaby, a curiosity dealer of Wardour Street, London, for 'several pieces of old carved wood' in May 1821, some of which were probably used by Winn to reconstruct parts of the interior of Wragby Church. Swaby made frequent buying trips to the Continent, and may well have supplied Winn with pieces like NT 959707, a Continental armoire, and NT 959805, a largely 16th century French cabinet in the manner of du Cerceau. Some pieces, such as this chair and NT 959708 and NT 959826 (both settles), amongst others, were obviously fabricated in the 19th century, although all such pieces at Nostell do incorporate timber from genuine pieces of early furniture. Much of the oak furniture at Nostell is typically Yorkshire in style.
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust by private treaty sale from Lord St Oswald in 2010.
References
Westgarth 2009, M. Westgarth, 'A Biographical Register of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers', Regional Furniture XXIII (2009), 1 - 205, 17, 35 - 41, 109, 131, 169 - 171, 172 & Plates 21 - 27, this chair illustrated Plate 21 Raikes, 2003: S.Raikes. ““A cultivated eye for the antique”: Charles Winn and the enrichment of Nostell Priory in the nineteenth century.” Apollo 157.494 (2003): pp.3-8., 5 - 6, Figure 6