18th Century Neoclassical Armchair

A superb late 18th century open armchair, after designs by Georges Jacob. French, circa 1780.

Why we like it

A wonderfully elegant chair, of great scale and proportions, superb colour and excellent original patination. Newly reupholstered in luxurious C&C Milano Ikat with matching trim.

Design

The distinctive trellis motif had been used by Georges Jacob for chairs he supplied to Marie Antoinette's dairy at Rambouillet in 1787 (see M. Beurdeley, Georges Jacob (1739-1814) et son temps, Saint-Remy en l'Eau, 2002) but was enduringly fashionable during the Directoire and his successors supplied various superb related examples to Fontainebleau, some of which were sold, Sotheby's, Paris, 12 March 2002, lot 45.

The design was adopted by the influential architect/designer Sir John Soane (d. 1837). He commissioned the set of twenty 'mahogany trellis chairs' for the Governor’s Room at The Bank, supplied in 1809 by the cabinet-maker David Bruce (d. 1823) of Aldersgate Street, London (see M. Jourdain, 'Early 19th-Century Furniture at the Bank of England’, Country Life, 3 October 1947, p. 676, fig. 2). Soane owned a pair of armchairs of the Bank design at his own home at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, now the Soane Museum, and adapted the design for a set of dining-chairs supplied by John Robins in 1821. Robins' invoice described these as 'trellis back chairs moulded & Paneled [sic] seats French stuffed covered with black Spanish Morocco red welts [and] stout turned feet to pattern’.

Absolutely gorgeous chair, newly reupholstered in luxurious C&C Milano Ikat with matching trim.

Dimensions

Height: 35.5 inches / 90 cm
Width: 23.5 inches / 60 cm
Depth: 21 inches / 53 cm
Seat height: 16.5 inches / 42 cm
Arm height: 25 inches / 63.5 cm