THE ALSCOT PARK CHAIRS, Anglo-Indian, circa 1770
Height: 39½ in; 100 cm
Height of seat: 17½ in; 44.5 cm
Width: 24 in; 61 cm
Depth: 21 in; 53 cm
Height of seat: 17½ in; 44.5 cm
Width: 24 in; 61 cm
Depth: 21 in; 53 cm
4438751
£100,000 +
Further images
A pair of George III period Anglo-Indian rosewood side chairs. Note: The chairs are numbered on the underside of the front rail with incised Roman-style numerals: IIII and VI respectively....
A pair of George III period Anglo-Indian rosewood side chairs.
Note: The chairs are numbered on the underside of the front rail with incised Roman-style numerals: IIII and VI respectively. One of the chairs retains the original teak drop-in seat, and the other has an 18th century beech replacement.
The numbering on the front rails of the chairs shows that there were at least eight chairs within the set. The settee from the set was sold in the London trade some twenty years ago. The ducal coronet crest, with dexter facing (facing left as seen by the viewer) spotted griffin without wings, was granted to James West of Alscot Park in 1768.
James West’s position in government as Secretary of the Treasury came with huge political influence and subsequent financial rewards from the East India Company, the government’s single most important trade partner at the time. West purchased Alscot Park in 1747 and immediately set about transforming the house into a gothic villa.
James West died in 1772, just two years after Alscot Park was completed. Confounding Horace Walpole’s belief that ‘he was so rich that I take for granted nothing will be sold’, West’s prodigious antiquarian collections were auctioned off, along with the house contents, curiosities and even livestock, over a series of sales, the longest lasting around fifty days in early 1773. A Caxton first edition of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was bought by King George III and is today among the treasures of the British Library in London.
Provenance
Commissioned by James West (1703–1772), Alscot Park, Warwickshire, England, until 1773;
Esmond Bradley Martin, Knole, Long Island, USA;
Sotheby’s New York, 30th October 2002, lot 157;
Private collection, London.
