A pair of George III carved mahogany armchairs, circa 1765, attributed to John Gordon

Almost certainly part of a larger set of twenty-four chairs and two settees commissioned by George, 4^th Earl of Cardigan for Ditton Park, Buckinghamshire;

Thence by descent at Ditton to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, younger son of Walter, 5th Duke of Buccleuch, Ditton Park, Surrey;

Likely Lady Holford;

Mallett of Bath, early 20^th century;

With Mallet & Son, London;

From whom acquired by in 1965 via The Hallsborough Gallery, London

Private Collection, Europe.

Illustrated examples from the suite, all armchairs unless otherwise stated

H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, London, n.d. [1911], vol. II, fig. 392

Edwards, R. and M. Jourdan, Georgian Cabinet-Makers, 3rd edn., London, 1955, p.213, fig.178

(an illustration of the settee): D. Nickerson, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1963, p.59, fig. 62

A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, pl. 87/88

The Connoisseur, August 1969, p.253, fig.4 (a single example of the armchairs sold at Sotheby’s in the same year, the pair appearing in this sale as lot 11)

A. Coleridge, ‘Chippendale, The Director, and some Cabinet-makers at Blair Castle', The Connoisseur, December 1960, p. 253, fig. 3 and 4.

Country Life, 17 June 1976, p.53 (an advertisement for Mallett)

F. David, ‘The Pretty and the Plain, Country Life, 1 May 1969, p.1078, fig.1.

P. Brown, The Noel Terry Collection of Furniture and Clocks, London, 1987, p.59, no. 59

L. Synge, Mallett's Great English Furniture, London, 1991, p.117, fig. 131