A Set of Six Anglo-Dutch William & Mary Style Carved Walnut 'Marot' Side Chairs, 19th Century

Tall back walnut side chairs with pierced splats and curved legs joined by a scroll stretcher are often referred to as 'Marot' chairs, after King William III's architect and designer Daniel Marot (1661–1752), a Paris-born Huguenot who emigrated to Holland and accompanied the King to England after 1688. Marot is credited with introducing the Louis XIV style into both Holland and England, and the scrolls and pierced foliate strapwork of these chairs are similar to his engraved ornamental designs. The model, however, dates to the early Georgian period and is based on a set of eighteen chairs supplied by Richard Roberts in 1717 to George I's Dining Room at Hampton Court Palace, ten of which survive today in the Royal Collection (one illustrated in Adam Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Woodbridge 2009, p.164 pl.4:40). Similar chairs were also produced by contemporary Dutch joiners, including an important numbered set of eighteen from the Sir James Horlick Collection now at Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire (National Trust). The model was also popular in the 19th century in the spirit of historicist revivals.

The Blumka Gallery was founded in Vienna in the nineteenth century and transferred to New York in 1939. It has long been one of the world's leading galleries of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque scultpture and works or art and has sold to leading collectors and institutions, among them the Metropolitan Museum, Louvre, Rijksmuseum, the Frick Collection and the Getty Museum. Now run by a fourth-generation member of the Blumka Family, the gallery is relocating to new premises in Manhattan and has decided to offer several works of furniture no longer required in their new space.