An exceedingly rare Henry VII joined oak double panel-back armchair, circa 1530


The back with two vertical panels, one topped by a Romayne-type profile portrait bust of an austere man, wearing a peaked cap, in a moulded circular surround, all atop a pedestal, with gadrooned moulded capital, a baluster stem issuing pomegranates and waisted scroll-edged plinth, the other panel with a female portrait bust, wearing a beaded headdress and open-necked gown, on a matching pedestal, the flat open-arms on reeded-scale carved front supports, the boarded seat supported on three sides, each with an apron pierced and carved with a central conforming gadrooned urn issuing scrolling grotesques, the legs joined by plain stretchers, professional restorations, 68.5cm wide x 41cm deep x 89cm high, (26 1/2in wide x 16in deep x 35in high)
|There are very few recorded English oak open-framed armchairs dating from the early 16th century. Furthermore, compared with a single panel-back example, a double panel-back chair is rarer still. Two related chairs can be noted: one in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow [Museum No. 14.201], dated to circa 1540-70, has two vertical rectangular back panels, again delicately carved in the Renaissance-style, but instead with urns and arabesques. The other, formerly in the Clive Sherwood collection, sold Sotheby's, Olympia, London, 22 May 2002, Lot 256 has two back panels carved with leaf-filled lozenges. See also Lot 263 in this sale, for an armchair with a pair of linenfold-carved back panels, circa 1540. It is also possible to compare this lot to known single back panel armchairs of the same period. See, for example, a celebrated chair in the National Museum of Wales Collection, St. Fagans. Here the back is carved with the arms of Sir Rhys ap Thomas of Dynefwr, Carmarthenshire, (1449-1525). The chair is illustrated in Victor Chinnery Oak Furniture: The British Tradition (2016), p. 200, fig. 3:28, and dated to no later than 1525. A further chair, known only from a wood engraving, drawn in the early 19th century, also has a Romayne-type portrait panel, illustrated, ibid., p. 202, fig 3:31. It appears that this chair may have had reeded-scale arm supports like those found here. Also, both chairs have a carved apron seat rail. A chair related to the Sir Rhys ap Thomas chair sold Sotheby's, Sussex, 19 and 20 June 2001, Lot 1265. It too has scale-carved supports to the flat arms, along with geometric seat aprons. Tobias Jellinek, Early British Chairs and Seats 1500 to 1700 (2009), p.77, pl.64, illustrates a chair, dated to 1625, again with a carved Romayne-type portrait back panel. Here the guilloche-carving to the crest and seat rails can be compared to the rails which frame the back of this lot. A further related chair sold in these rooms, 28 March 2018, Lot 481 (£43,200).