Pair of Chinese Export Carved Padouk Side Chairs

CHINA, CIRCA 1730.

Made in padouk carved in low relief, the hooped back with an urn-shaped splat and curvilinear seat rails, decorated with stylized foliage, on hipped cabriole legs with carved shell and foliate decoration, terminating in carved pad feet decorated with grotesque masks.

Chairs of this type were made in the East by Chinese craftsmen working under European supervision, either on the mainland or at a trading centre such as Manila or Batavia. The richer and more abundant the decoration, as is the case for these chairs, the more expensive and luxurious the set.

This remarkable decorative scheme imitates the work of English cut gesso, carved in low relief on gilded furniture. This pair of chairs is inspired by a George I design and is the same model as a rosewood example at Temple Newsam, Yorkshire (Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, Vol. II, National Art Collections Fund and the Leeds Art Collections Fund, 1978, p. 492, No. 648). Other examples of this model, also executed in padouk are known, including a set at Wilton House, Wiltshire (photographed in the dining room, J.M. Robinson, "Wilton House - Neo-Georgian delight," Country Life, January 20, 2010, pp. 52-53, fig. 2), another in the Gerstenfeld Collection - see Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection (Edward Lennox-Boyd (ed.), Christie’s, London, 1998), p.207, fig.31; and another that was in the Milhender Collection is illustrated in Carl L. Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade (Antique Collectors Club), 1997, p.231, pl.83.

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