A Pair of George II Walnut Side Chairs, Attributed to Giles Grendey, Circa 1730

Francis Shaw, Wayland, Massachusetts;

Carlton Hobbs, New York;

Chris Jussel Mystic, Connecticut

These two chairs and its pair en suite (lot 144) are almost identical to a well-known set of side chairs and armchairs by Giles Grendey thought to have been originally supplied to Sprotborough Hall, Yorkshire, seat of the Bewicke-Copley family, where several chairs were recorded in a Country LIfe article in 1922, a few years before the house's demolition. More recently three chairs and one armchair from the suite were in the collection of J.S. Phipps of Long Island and then sold Sotheby's New York, 21 November 1981, lots 233-35. The armchair is now in a American private collection, and the side chairs are divided among the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; the Art Institute of Chicago, and Crab Tree Farms, Lake Bluff. This model differs from the offered lot in having a more elaborately carved splat and a moulded border above the carved shell on the knees.

Giles Grendey (1693–1780) was one of the most important cabinetmakers working in London in the 18th century. Born in Gloucestershire, he was in the capital as an apprentice to William Sherborne at the age of 16. By 1731 he had established his workshop in St John's Square, Clerkenwell, which operated until at least 1755 and was a large enterprise serving both domestic and overseas clients. Grendey is particularly noteworthy for his chair production, and a number of examples bearing his label survive. Many also bear stamped initials thought to represent journeymen from his workshop, providing a further tool to facilitate attribution. Grendey was among the first English furniture makers to develop a significant export market, and arguably his most celebrated work was the commission for a suite of over seventy-seven scarlet japanned chairs, daybeds, mirrors, stands, bureaus and tables for the Duke of Infantado at Lazcano Castle in Northern Spain, now dispersed among several preeminent public and private collections.

Comparable walnut chairs by or attributed to Grendey to appear on the market in recent years include a pair sold Christie's London, 22 November 2022 lot 91; another pair sold Christie's New York, 2 June 2015 lot 144; and three further pairs formerly in the Horlick Collection, sold Sotheby's London, 5 June 2007, lots 25-27. Similar chairs are also illustrated in Percy Macquoid, A History of English Furniture: The Age of Walnut (London 1908), p.181, fig. 406, and Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture (London 1986), vol. 1, p. 263, fig. 116.