This pair of walnut side chairs is closely related to several chairs attributed to the Clerkenwell workshop of Giles Grendey (1693-1780). Most significant is a set of six in the Carnegie Museum of Art (ill. C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, 1996, pp. 242, fig. 435) which bear the trade label of Grendey and, much like these chairs, journeymen initials. Several chairs known to have been produced by Grendey’s workshop bear journeymen initials: ‘HW’, ‘EA’, ‘GIL’, ‘TM’, ‘IT’, ‘TT’, ‘MW’, and ‘ID’ have been recorded. Although ‘WF’ is not amongst them, its inclusion is highly typical of his output. There also exist several chairs of an almost identical design dispersed amongst important collections: one at Temple Newsam, Leeds (ill. C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, London, 1978, vol. 1, p. 74, fig. 56), another from the collection of the late Duchess of Wellington (ill. P. Macquoid, The Age of Walnut, 1905, p. 206, fig. 192), and a further set of six at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool.

By 1720 Grendey had established his workshop in St Paul’s, Covent Garden, when he is recorded as having married Elizabeth van Knyven. Soon after he moved to St John’s Square, Clerkenwell, by which point his reputation as a cabinetmaker was notable, and a newspaper account of 1731 refers to his ‘rich and curious Workmanship.’ Grendey’s most celebrated commission was a seventy-two piece suite of furniture in japanned scarlet for the Duke of Infantado, in Lazcano, Spain, now dispersed amongst the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Temple Newsam, Leeds. Despite Grendey’s well-documented export business, the present chairs would likely have been for the domestic market, and it is their distinctively shaped and veneered back splats, crisply carved cresting and legs, and their similarity to chairs known to have been produced by Grendey which most convincingly associate them with his workshop.

A related pair from Heydon Hall, Norfolk - with proudly carved acanthus leaves to the knees and paw feet, as opposed to the shell-carved knees and claw-and-ball of the present chairs - was sold Christie's, London, 7 June 2007, lot lot 70 (£90,000 inc. premium). More recently a pair of side chairs of similar design from the collection of Lord & Lady Weinstock were sold Christie's, London, 22 November 2022, lot 91 (£50,400 inc. premium).