Pair of mahogany hall chairs

The Brownlow Hall chairs. A fine and rare pair of George III mahogany chairs, each of these 18th century hall chairs have dished and shaped seats are supported by cabriole legs on scrolled toes. One chair later inscribed to the reverse ‘Home, Sweet Home, 30 Hill St London, with dates 1785 and 1858. This corresponds to the lease of Lord & Lady Brownlow’s residence in London.

Provenance: Malletts – Mayfair, London. Lennox Cato Antiques, BADA Fair. London.

Literature; Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director, plate 17, London, 1762

These elegant Georgian chairs bear the patriotic inscription ‘Home! Sweet Home!’ from Sigismond Thalberg’s 1857 composition that was most favoured at President Abraham Lincoln’s White House and derived from the words of John Payne’s 1823 Opera, “Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”. The inscription was added in 1858 to the back of the chairs, which belonged to the Hon. John William Spencer Home-Cust, later 2nd Earl Brownlow (d.1808). Their backs derive in particular from a 1759 ‘Hall Chair’ pattern issued in the Third Edition of the St. Martin’s Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale’s, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1762).

Circa 1765