Including two open armchairs, each with a curved tablet shaped panelled toprail inset with ebony banding on lyre shaped splat headed by scallop-shell, the padded brass bound seat covered in red leather, on square tapering channelled sabre legs and block feet, seven including both armchairs stamped 'B. Harmer', those and one other with thinner front-rail, one inscribed in ink 426 Frame.r..f.t. Stuff g
33¹⁄₂ in. (85 cm.) high; 19¹⁄₂ in. (49.5 cm.) wide; 21 in. (53.5 cm.) deep

William Shepherd, Esq. (d. 1815), of Brabourne Manor, Kent, and Russell Square, London, in 1802 married Anna Lovell Dawson;
Her brother, George Dawson, Esq., Groton Hall, Boxford, Colchester;
By descent at Groton to Miss E.G. Dawson; Christie's, London, 15 March 1956, lot 63.
Property of a Gentleman; Christie's, London, 11 April 1991, lot 83 (£268,200).

R. Edwards and L. G. G. Ramsey, The Connoisseur Period Guide: The Regency Period, 'Furniture by E.T. Joy', 1958, pl. 21 (B).
C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, 1700-1840, 1996, p. 259, fig. 478.

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Lot Essay

This magnificent set of sixteen dining chairs belongs to a masterfully carved though intriguing group of furniture stamped 'B HARMER'. Alongside the present chairs, stamps have been discovered on a set of hall chairs at Petworth House, Sussex, a suite of chairs by Marsh & Tatham at Powderham Castle, Devon, and an X-framed chair to a design Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807 (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, 1700-1840, 1996, p. 33).

Despite the existence of this group, the identity of B Harmer remains something of a mystery. It seems that he did not own a workshop selling directly to the public. It is therefore possible that Harmer worked as a journeyman executing designs for other firms, or perhaps even as a retailer. There is precedent for journeymen marking their furniture, though this was almost invariably with their initials, rather than their entire surname. Christopher Gilbert writes that 'in view of his prolific output, Harmer must have been master of a sizeable workshop'. Whether a master or a journeyman, the quality of Harmer's work is undisputable, for which the present chairs are the preeminent example. The backs, with subtly carved scallop shells and lyre backs, and the armchairs with their bold lion paws all show the striking quality of Harmer's carving.

Sold in these rooms on 15 March 1956 by Miss E.G. Dawson, Dawson family tradition suggests that these chairs were commissioned for William Shepherd's house on Russell Square very soon after his marriage in 1802 to Anna Lovell Dawson. If true, these chairs would have been contemporary with the advanced Grecian taste of connoisseurs such as Thomas Hope in his Duchess Street house. Although the Franco-Grecian decoration there was to become immensely influential after 1807, with the publication of its interiors in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, Hope began furnishing some years earlier, circa 1800. These chairs, like the Powderham suite, would then have been highly avant-garde for their time.

Another set of twenty-three chairs of this design was sold Christie's, London, 7 July 1994, lot 76, including an armchair stamped by Harmer and two chairs stamped HH. It is possible that the present set and the set sold in 1994 share the same early provenance.