Research:
Of mahogany. The undulating molded back with foliate carved crest and apron is centered by a tapestry panel of a young man watering flowers in a garden. The panel is detachable by means of an iron slide bolt at the panel base. From the back issues a pair of curvaceous arms with foliate carved and fluted hand rests and tapestry covered arm pads. The ogee molded seat rail is centered by a fan shaped carved palm leaf and pearl motif. The tapestry seat is centered by a depiction of a strutting exotic bird in a landscape. The front cabriole legs with carved fronded and pearl decoration to the knee and terminating in a bulb toe flanked by C scrolls. The rear legs of similar form with pronounced rake. Old and recent conservation to tapestry.
This unusual, exquisitely carved mahogany armchair is likely by the important London chair maker John Gordon (fl. 1748–1796), whose premises were in Swallow Street, Westminster. By 1748 Gordon appears in the accounts of Blair Castle, providing furniture to the 2nd Duke of Atholl. “The type and range of furnishings supplied to the Duke indicates that John Gordon ran a sizable establishment, providing a variety of cabinetmaking, upholstery and joinery services.” He employed as his trade sign a chair supported by a Dragon (when trading as Landall and Gordon).
The known examples of seating furniture by Gordon are unusual and stand quite apart from mainstream English chairs of the period. Most demonstrative of this observation are a set of twenty-four commissioned by the 4th Earl of Cardigan for Ditton Park, Buckinghamshire, two of which are conserved in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Strongly inspired in form by the French Louis XV “chaise cabriolet,” these mahogany chairs are unique in being almost entirely carved in minutely rendered imbricated fish scales.
The distinctive razor-sharp carving on the present piece is analogous to carving on a suite of mahogany chairs strongly attributed to Gordon that were commissioned by John, 1st Earl Spencer (1734-1783) for the Great Ballroom of Spencer House. A further, gilded version of this model was supplied to 1st Earl Harcourt for Nuneham Park, Oxon. The somewhat spiky and studiedly static nature of the foliate carved ornament distinctively ringed with “pearls” appear on both examples.
Full research report available on request.