Page 220 - Irving Collection Part II Chinese Art

I
L A C Q U E R • J A D E • B R O N Z E • I N K T H E R V I N G C O L L E C T I O N 髹金飾玉 - 歐雲伉儷珍藏

1315
n A SET OF EIGHT GEORGE III SOLID MAHOGANY DINING CHAIRS
POSSIBLY WRIGHT & ELWICK, CIRCA 1765

Each with pierced back above a yellow silk damask covered seat on shell Eight chairs from this set were illustrated in the Partridge Summer
and acanthus carved legs terminating in scrolled feet, minor variations to Exhibition Yearbook, 1990, no. 22. These chairs are closely related to a set
carving; together with four George III style mahogany dining chairs, modern of twelve chairs at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire, which were possibly supplied
$40,000-60,000 (12) by Wright & Elwick of Wakefeld, and probably those recorded in the
household inventories of 1806 and 1812 as ‘12 Mahog- Chairs and Castors’.
The attribution to Wright & Elwick is based on a further set of closely related
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Partridge, London. chairs thought to have been supplied by the frm to Kippax Park, Yorkshire
The Irving Collection, no. DR01. (see Moss Harris, The English Chair, London, 1946, p. 123). Wright & Elwick
were undoubtedly employed at Nostell; in a letter to Sir Rowland Winn dated
LITERATURE
F.L. Hinckley, A Directory of Queen Anne, Early Georgian and Chippendale 26 August 1767, Chippendale was obliged to confess why he had failed to
Furniture, New York, 1971, pl. 125, fg. 263. dye some old crimson wall hangings: ‘I fnd it will not take a garter blue as
Eight chairs from this set were illustrated in the Partridge Summer the Ingenious Mr. Elwick said it would, I trusted his knowledge for which I
Exhibition Yearbook, 1990, no. 22. am sorely vexd, it will take a dark blue and no other coloure’ (L. Boynton,
N. Goodison, ‘Thomas Chippendale at Nostell Priory’, Furniture History, 1968,
p. 22).

218 P P A R TA R T I I II