ATTRIBUTED TO VILE AND COBB, CIRCA 1760

THE ATTRIBUTION AND THE MAHOGANY SUITE AT CROOME COURT
Lots 6, 7, and 9 form a suite of seat furniture comprising a pair of sofas and six armchairs. The suite is attributed to the celebrated cabinetmaking partnership of William Vile (1740-1767) and John Cobb (c. 1715-1778), based on its identical form to a documented mahogany example—rather than the pine seen here—supplied to the 6th Earl of Coventry at Croome Court by Vile and Cobb in 1761. The mahogany suite remained at Croome until it was sold by Sotheby’s London on 25 June 1948, lot 137, as part of a larger sale on behalf of the Croome Estate Trustees.

Croome Court underwent extensive refurbishment in the 1760s under the direction of Robert Adam. Although many of London’s leading cabinetmakers contributed to the project, royal cabinetmakers Vile and Cobb were the principal suppliers. Croome Court stands as one of their most important commissions. Remarkably, an almost complete series of bills survives for Croome from 1757 to 1801. An invoice from Vile and Cobb dated 28 June 1761 references the identical mahogany suite, listing:
'For 6 Handsome Carv'd Mahogy. Arm'd Chairs, on Castors, Stuff'd and Quilt'd & Covered with morrocco Leather, and finish'd Complete, with the best Burnish'd nailes...at £7 each'.
A pair of corresponding sofas are listed in a subsequent invoice dated 5 July 1761.

William Vile died in 1767, but his partner John Cobb continued to supply furniture to Lord Coventry at Croome Court. It has therefore traditionally been speculated that the present suite corresponds to a later Cobb commission for Croome—albeit for eight, rather than six, giltwood armchairs and two sofas—recorded in two invoices from 1768. The invoice for the armchairs, dated 22 January 1768, details:
'For 8 French pattern arm’d Chairs, carv’d and gilt in burnish’d gold, with hollow backs, stuff’d & quilted in linen, finding stuff to the back backs, gilt nails, all small materials, & covering do comp with your crimson silk damask... £46'.
While ‘French’-pattern chairs are a plausible description for the present suite, and the use of pine for the frames strongly suggests they were originally gilt, the difference between the 1761 description of the mahogany suite and the 1768 description of the giltwood suite suggests they were not, in fact, identical. Furthermore, if this suite were to correspond to the 1768 invoice, it would be unusual that it was ordered a full seven years after the mahogany set, when such French-style chairs were falling out of fashion in favor of more fully-fledged Neoclassical designs.

Nevertheless, a Vile and Cobb attribution still stands, and of additional interest is an inscription on one of the armchairs in the present suite, which reads: 'Robt. France'. While no individual by that name is recorded in the Vile and Cobb workshop, the name may refer to a relation of the cabinetmaker William France. Notably, William’s partner John Bradburn is known to have worked for Vile and Cobb prior to founding his own firm in 1768. This potential connection further supports the attribution and raises the possibility that Robert France was employed in their workshop at the time the suite was made.

A WORCESTERSHIRE CONNECTION: HEWELL GRANGE
While it remains possible that the present suite formed part of the 1768 commission for Croome Court, an alternative and more compelling provenance lies in its association with Hewell Grange, another Worcestershire country house re-built in the grand Jacobean-style between 1884 and 1891 for Robert George Windsor-Clive (1827-1953), 1st Earl of Plymouth.

Identical giltwood armchairs, corresponding to how this suite was previously decorated, are visible in a 1903 photograph of the Great Hall at Hewell Grange, published in Country Life (see: 'Hewell Grange, Worcestershire, The Seat of Lord Windsor', Country Life, 15 August 1903, pp. 240-246). Likewise, the chairs are further depicted in a 1908 painting by William Nicholson of Lord and Lady Windsor-Clive with their son and daughter, also in the Great Hall. Their continued presence within early 20th-century photographs of the house—and their placement in its central space—suggest they were highly prized. Given that the Hewell chairs are identical to those in the present suite, it is highly likely they are the same. Furthermore, after World War II, in the face of mounting death duties, the Windsor-Clive family was forced to sell Hewell Grange to the Crown. The contents of the house were sold at auction on 20 April 1945 and included lot 1221, a suite of furniture comprising eight armchairs and two sofas, matching the description and dimensions of the present group. The catalogue entry reads:
'Carved and Gilt Louis Design Drawing Suite, comprising: — Two 8ft. 6 in. settees with shaped backs, and eight fauteuils with seats and backs upholstered in silk tapestry with loose covers'.

Although the current Hewell Grange house was not completed until 1891, it had an earlier incarnation: the 18th-century house which today is referred to as the Old Hall. Commissioned by Other Windsor (1679–1727), 2nd Earl of Plymouth, it was completed around 1712 and subsequently ‘significantly improved and furnished’ in 1758 by the 4th Earl of Plymouth. Thus, it seems the most likely scenario that the suite of seat furniture was supplied by Vile and Cobb for Hewell Grange at that time; especially given that the style of the suite would have been supremely in vogue, and similar sets were being supplied to neighboring houses around the same time (such as the aforementioned identical mahogany version supplied to Croome in 1761). If this is true, the suite very well could have remained at Hewell’s ‘Old Hall’ until 1893, when the Windsor-Clive family relocated to the newly completed Victorian mansion. Interestingly, the original Hewell Grange was left in a picturesque state of ruin. Its shell, preserved as a folly, still stands today roughly 200 meters east of the later house.

ANOTHER POSSIBILITY: CONVERGING HISTORIES
Curiously, both candidates for this suite’s origin, the giltwood suite at Croome and the Hewell Grange suite, comprised two sofas and eight armchairs, whereas the present group includes only six—leaving two unaccounted for in either scenario. More tellingly, no record has been discovered documenting how or when the giltwood suite left Croome. While the identical mahogany suite appeared in the 1948 Sotheby’s sale of contents from the house, the giltwood suite was absent, suggesting it was removed earlier. Therefore, the possibility that the Hewell suite originated at Croome should not be entirely dismissed. To this end, it is well documented the 9th Earl of Coventry gradually sold contents from Croome to raise funds. The most notable instance was likely the sale of the celebrated ‘Croome Court Tapestries’ around 1902, now housed in the aptly named Tapestry Room from Croome Court at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Newspaper articles from the period indicate that the Earl was seeking buyers as early as 1896 (see: ‘Futile Suit Against Lord Coventry’, Sheerness Times Guardian, 26 Jan 1901, BNA). It is worth speculating that the giltwood suite was sold privately during that time—perhaps to the Earl of Coventry’s neighbor at Hewell Grange, Robert Windsor-Clive, who was himself a collector on a considerable scale (see: The Treasure Houses of Britain, New Haven & London, 1985, p. 625). Indeed, this timeline fits rather neatly: Windsor-Clive would have been furnishing his newly completed Victorian country house, and the suite was in place by 1903, when it was photographed for Country Life. While there are several known sets of armchairs also constructed in pine but with slight variations to the present pattern—the most closely related being a nearly identical model distinguished by the addition of subtle C-scrolls to the legs (see: a pair in stained-pine, sold, Property from the Estate of Janice Booth Abbott, Sotheby’s, New York, 9 April 2009, lot 68)—there is, as of yet, only one other known pair of completely identical giltwood armchairs. They are currently in a private U.K. collection. No sofas of this design in pine are currently known outside the present pair. Although the provenance of the U.K. pair remains unknown, it is conceivable that they represent the missing fourth pair of armchairs—potentially completing the suite of eight armchairs and two sofas which not only exemplify the refined output of Cobb’s workshop but also possibly link two of Worcestershire’s greatest country houses.