Pair of Side Chairs, Third Quarter 19th Century

John Moyr Smith, well known as an illustrator, decorator and designer of furniture, designed this chair circa 1871 (A. Stapleton, fig. 7). The design for this chair is closely related to a design for a pianoforte with nearly identical arched legs, illustrated in the Building News of 1869. The firm of Cox & Sons (1837-1881) known for producing ecclesiastical and Gothic-revival style furniture, enlisted leading designers such as Bruce Talbert, Edward William Godwin, and John Moyr Smith to design for the art furniture branch of the company. Another chair with similarly incised geometric design by Smith was illustrated in an 1872 catalogue by Cox & Son, no. 89 (A. Stapleton, fig. 5). The chair was available in oak or walnut, with either Moroccan leather or velvet, as on the present example. An identical chair with similar velvet upholstery was sold at Bonham’s, London, 4 March 2015, lot 6.

A pair of side chairs of this design and potentially this same lot, with provenance to Edward Cecil Guinness, the Right Hon., The Earl of Iveagh, were offered Christie’s, London, 8 June, 1993, lot 113.

For side chairs of identical design and upholstery, possibly the current lot:
A. Stapleton, “John Moyr Smith 1839-1912”, The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, 1996, no. 20, pp. 18-28.
A. Stapleton, John Moyr Smith 1839-1912, A Victorian Designer, Somerset, 2002, p. 29, fig. 36.