The Anglesey Chairs
with serpentine backs and seats, twelve covered in contemporary red leather, three in green velvet, the front legs with gothic blind-tracery and with out-swept rear legs united by H-form stretchers
Condition Report:
These chairs are of superb quality and would have been a costly acquisition/commission when they entered the Anglesey collection.
Evidence of pierced spandrels to the front of each chair. Occasional filler to scratches and marks. Chips to edges and some carved detail. Variations to colour/surface – generally this does not detract. Losses to stain and polish at base of most legs. Nearly all with original ticking. The transport grooves and later angle-blocks to underside of each seat. Historic evidence of worm to undersides. Some with fracture at stretcher joins. One rear leg apparently with spliced repair.
12 of the 15 with old red leather, which is probably original or close to the date that these were made. Distressed. Patching and restoration to leather of some. One seat badly torn and the same lacking a back panel. Some backs with punctures and tears. This damage is interesting in that it reveals the leather may principally be of the period. Later (very well made) removable leather backs slips on all but two leather examples.
Chair with the green velvet which is a light in colour, good, later under-seat angle-blocks, evidence of old worm. The green velvet examples with worm, later angle-blocks to underside of each seat and losses to carved detail.
A wonderful set.
Provenance:
Probably Henry Bayly-Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, second creation, (1744-1812). He was born Henry Bayly and in 1769 he succeeded as 10th Baron Paget on the death of his mothers cousin. In 1770, around the time these chairs were made, he changed his name to incorporate Paget by Royal license. It is also in the early part of that decade that he commissioned costly silver (see lots 36-39).
In 1769, Beaudesert the great ancestral seat of the Paget family also passed to him. In 1771-72 James Wyatt (1746–1813) was commissioned by Henry, remarkably quickly upon inheriting, to remodel the interior of this 16th century house in the gothic revival style of that period. From 1783 Plas Newydd also underwent alteration and following the same stylistic direction. It is therefore interesting, that the present chairs, which date from that time feature restrained gothic detailing which would have complemented the interior decorative schemes of both houses.
It is hard ascertaining which of the family houses these chairs were acquired for. The 1802 Housekeepers Inventory of Plas Newydd (Bangor University Archives and Special Collections, PN/V/576) lists runs of chairs with seats covered in ‘red Morocco leather’, including ‘16 Black chairs in the Vestibule the same as to the chairs in the Large Dining Room’, there are a '2 large black sofas with red morocco seats and back cushions', then '12 large chairs to match with red morocco seats and backs' it also refers to smaller chairs with the same red leather upholstery, the use of the word ‘Black’ rather than mahogany is puzzling, which appears elsewhere as a distinguishing feature of the furnishings described.
There were other pieces in the ‘Gothick’ style at Plas Newydd including a series of ‘painted Gothic chairs’ variously listed in Lord Uxbridge’s Sitting Room and in the Dressing Rooms of the Middle and North Towers. This hints at an interior with not just gothic revival fixtures but fittings too.
Thomas Chippendale's in The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director (London: 1754) featured designs for chairs legs in a 'Gothick' style1. With relief carved and pierced decoration, a fusion of chinoiserie motifs and Medieval tracery and there is stylistic derivation from this with the present chairs.
Wyatt was a designer and architect of considerable versatility, usually working in the light, Neoclassical style. He was also a key figure in the popular establishment of the Gothic Revival taste, providing a bridge between the small-scale, highly personal Strawberry Hill style with the state-backed magnificence that the Gothic would take in the High Victorian era. Wyatt’s revivalism usually did not depart from already-established, non-Gothic forms, into which Gothic details and surface would be incorporated: as John Martin Robinson writes, “Wyatt’s approach to Gothic, though based on studies and drawings of medieval detail, was basically Neoclassical and Picturesque”.2 A characteristic example of this is one of Wyatt’s designs for Plas Newydd, a sash window with Gothic details (RIBA66476): the earliest examples of sash windows date to the seventeenth century, a rather anachronistic combination with Gothic tracery from around the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Examples of chairs by Wyatt in the Gothic Revival style can be seen in the V&A (W.151-1978) and at Christie’s London, 15th December 2016, lot 82. While the Royal Collection also holds some sumptuous giltwood chairs designed for...
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with serpentine backs and seats, twelve covered in contemporary red leather, three in green velvet, the front legs with gothic blind-tracery and with out-swept rear legs united by H-form stretchers
Condition Report:
These chairs are of superb quality and would have been a costly acquisition/commission when they entered the Anglesey collection.
Evidence of pierced spandrels to the front of each chair. Occasional filler to scratches and marks. Chips to edges and some carved detail. Variations to colour/surface – generally this does not detract. Losses to stain and polish at base of most legs. Nearly all with original ticking. The transport grooves and later angle-blocks to underside of each seat. Historic evidence of worm to undersides. Some with fracture at stretcher joins. One rear leg apparently with spliced repair.
12 of the 15 with old red leather, which is probably original or close to the date that these were made. Distressed. Patching and restoration to leather of some. One seat badly torn and the same lacking a back panel. Some backs with punctures and tears. This damage is interesting in that it reveals the leather may principally be of the period. Later (very well made) removable leather backs slips on all but two leather examples.
Chair with the green velvet which is a light in colour, good, later under-seat angle-blocks, evidence of old worm. The green velvet examples with worm, later angle-blocks to underside of each seat and losses to carved detail.
A wonderful set.
Provenance:
Probably Henry Bayly-Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, second creation, (1744-1812). He was born Henry Bayly and in 1769 he succeeded as 10th Baron Paget on the death of his mothers cousin. In 1770, around the time these chairs were made, he changed his name to incorporate Paget by Royal license. It is also in the early part of that decade that he commissioned costly silver (see lots 36-39).
In 1769, Beaudesert the great ancestral seat of the Paget family also passed to him. In 1771-72 James Wyatt (1746–1813) was commissioned by Henry, remarkably quickly upon inheriting, to remodel the interior of this 16th century house in the gothic revival style of that period. From 1783 Plas Newydd also underwent alteration and following the same stylistic direction. It is therefore interesting, that the present chairs, which date from that time feature restrained gothic detailing which would have complemented the interior decorative schemes of both houses.
It is hard ascertaining which of the family houses these chairs were acquired for. The 1802 Housekeepers Inventory of Plas Newydd (Bangor University Archives and Special Collections, PN/V/576) lists runs of chairs with seats covered in ‘red Morocco leather’, including ‘16 Black chairs in the Vestibule the same as to the chairs in the Large Dining Room’, there are a '2 large black sofas with red morocco seats and back cushions', then '12 large chairs to match with red morocco seats and backs' it also refers to smaller chairs with the same red leather upholstery, the use of the word ‘Black’ rather than mahogany is puzzling, which appears elsewhere as a distinguishing feature of the furnishings described.
There were other pieces in the ‘Gothick’ style at Plas Newydd including a series of ‘painted Gothic chairs’ variously listed in Lord Uxbridge’s Sitting Room and in the Dressing Rooms of the Middle and North Towers. This hints at an interior with not just gothic revival fixtures but fittings too.
Thomas Chippendale's in The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director (London: 1754) featured designs for chairs legs in a 'Gothick' style1. With relief carved and pierced decoration, a fusion of chinoiserie motifs and Medieval tracery and there is stylistic derivation from this with the present chairs.
Wyatt was a designer and architect of considerable versatility, usually working in the light, Neoclassical style. He was also a key figure in the popular establishment of the Gothic Revival taste, providing a bridge between the small-scale, highly personal Strawberry Hill style with the state-backed magnificence that the Gothic would take in the High Victorian era. Wyatt’s revivalism usually did not depart from already-established, non-Gothic forms, into which Gothic details and surface would be incorporated: as John Martin Robinson writes, “Wyatt’s approach to Gothic, though based on studies and drawings of medieval detail, was basically Neoclassical and Picturesque”.2 A characteristic example of this is one of Wyatt’s designs for Plas Newydd, a sash window with Gothic details (RIBA66476): the earliest examples of sash windows date to the seventeenth century, a rather anachronistic combination with Gothic tracery from around the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Examples of chairs by Wyatt in the Gothic Revival style can be seen in the V&A (W.151-1978) and at Christie’s London, 15th December 2016, lot 82. While the Royal Collection also holds some sumptuous giltwood chairs designed for...
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