A REGENCY GOTHIC CANED OAK SOFA, CIRCA 1805-10, THE DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO JAMES WYATT

A REGENCY GOTHIC CANED OAK SOFA
CIRCA 1805-10, THE DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO JAMES WYATT
The cushions covered in coral-patterned cotton, the pierced quatrefoil toprail above a caned back and seat, on tapering cluster-column legs and brass castors, inventory label 317, stamped W
36 ¼ in. (92 cm.) high; 81 ½ in. (207 cm.) wide; 30 ½ in. (77.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

Almost certainly commissioned by James Peachey, 1st Baron Selsey (1723-1808) for West Dean House and by descent to his granddaughter
Mrs Caroline Harcourt (née Peachey; d. 1871) until
acquired with West Dean Park in 1871 by Frederick Bower and subsequently sold in 1891 to
William James and by descent at West Dean.

West Dean ? A Wyatt Commission
(see lots 75, 76, 77 & 82)

James Wyatt (1746-1813), was responsible for the comprehensive rebuilding of West Dean, the design of its interiors and almost certainly much of its furnishing circa 1805-8.

In 1805 Sir James Peachey, 1st Lord Selsey (1723-1808), commissioned the King?s architect James Wyatt to improve his seat at West Dean. The result was to largely rebuild the Jacobean mansion of which the only visible traces remain in the cellars of Wyatt?s house. Wyatt was, perhaps, the most acclaimed architect of his day, with William Beckford?s audacious Gothic fantasy, Fonthill Abbey, his most famous (or infamous) creation. West Dean has undergone subsequent alterations and additions, most notably those undertaken for Edward James? father, William James (1854-1912) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, the house we see today is in essence Wyatt?s vision, even if some of the more striking details of his original design have been swept away, such as the great central Gothic lancet-form window, formerly above the main entrance.

Ackermann records Wyatt?s building as ?a happy combination of everything appertaining to internal comfort, refinement, and display...The whole was effected under the professional skill and cultivated taste of the late Mr. Wyatt, whose judgement was even extended to most of the interior decorations and furniture? (Ackermann, ?Views of Country Seats, West Dean House?, The Repository..., 1 June 1827, vol. IX, pp. 311-12). John Martin Robinson attributes furniture at West Dean to James Wyatt and discusses how ?Wyatt increasingly bent his attention to the design of Gothic furniture...often to match his Gothic interiors?, citing West Dean as a case in point (J. Martin Robinson, James Wyatt; Architect to George III, New Haven and London, 2012, p. 159). The West Dean library was fitted out with oak panelling and bookcases applied with cluster columns from which a delicate fan-vaulted tracery ceiling sprung; an interior which remained intact at the time of William James? acquisition of the house in 1891, as recorded in a contemporary photograph(illustrated right). It was almost certainly for this room that the sofa and chairs (lots 76 & 77) were commissioned, along with the related caned armchair visible in that photograph. They form part of a wider coherent group of indigenous Gothic furniture which can be confidently attributed to Wyatt. The quatrefoil-section cluster column supports not only match those employed in the original library at West Dean (now partially refitted elsewhere in the house), but appear elsewhere in Wyatt?s known oeuvre, for example as corner pilasters for the desks he designed for Wilton House, Wiltshire, and as banister spindles at Auckland Castle, County Durham (one desk illustrated, ibid., p. 159, pl. 158).

Whilst this seat furniture cannot be identified in the 1838 West Dean inventories, it seems likely that there was a separate (now lost) list of 'heirlooms' which accompanied them, in which this furniture was likely included. A surviving document in the West Dean archive of circa 1871, in the same hand as an accompanying list of Selsey paintings is entitled ?Articles of Oak Furniture at West Dean House for opinion of Mr. Myers.? It seems likely (at least partially) to be a transcription of an earlier list of Peachey heirlooms which may have accompanied the 1838 documents accounting for the omission of these and other ?heirlooms? therein. The list gives particulars of various items of furniture under the hearing ?Library? as from a ?suite of oak furniture specially designed to correspond with the fittings of the room?, including: ?2 occasional chairs carved oak back cane seats cushioned? and ?3 sofas ditto ditto ditto? which almost certainly relate to the following lots. The same document also describes a set of ?12 Carved Oak Chairs with family crest emblazoned on back? (almost certainly the set including the four chairs in lot 75), which were also conspicuously absent from the 1838 inventory. They too were almost certainly part of Wyatt?s scheme and are decorated with the Peachey crest so it would be highly unlikely that they would be introduced to the house later than that date as that inventory was compiled at the death of the last Baron Selsey. Furthermore, the pair of oak console tables, apparently en suite with this ?Library? seat furniture, and carved with the Peachey crest, (one of which remains in the hall at West Dean) would have almost certainly formed part of the same commission along, with the fitted library bookcases. These tables were recorded in the 1838 inventories, further evidencing the presence of the wider group of indigenous Gothic furniture, from Wyatt?s original scheme, at West Dean at that date.

We are grateful to Dr. John Martin Robinson for his assistance in researching this group of furniture.