ATTRIBUTED TO GILES GRENDEY, CIRCA 1730

The present chair is the exact same pattern as a set of six side chairs attributed to Giles Grendey that were sold Christie's, London, 15 November 2017, lot 153 (GBP 37,500). Interestingly, each of those six were stamped 'IL', presumably for a different individual chair-maker in the Grendey workshop to the one who stamped this chair.

This vase splat parlor chair, with cabriole supports embellished with Venus shells and terminating in Jupiter’s eagle claw feet, is designed in the George II ‘antique’ manner. The overall design is of a well-known pattern which can be seen in chairs bearing the respective stamps of Giles Grendey and Samuel Sharp (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, fig. 434; A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Woodbridge, 2010, plate 1:27). Lucy Wood describes and illustrates the variations of this type of chair in The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Gallery (see: vol. I, New Haven and London, 2008, pp. 245-263). Her comparables suggest that the use of the carved ‘C’ scroll on the supports is often associated with chairs attributed to Grendey (ibid., figs. 20A, 154, 164, 165, 169 and 170).