Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)

An Egyptian Revival chair, circa 1857

ebonised wood, with turned supports, the ladder back with top rail carved with hieroglyphs, the cane seat of concave form

84cm high, 55cm wide, 55cm deep.

Catalogue Notes:

The present chair appears to have been inspired by an inlaid pair of chairs designed by William Holman Hunt and made by J. G. Crace in 1856–57, now in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Hunt's designs were themselves based on an ancient Egyptian inlaid stool in the British Museum. Hunt invited Madox Brown to see the chairs in December 1857, and in his diary for January 1858 Madox Brown recorded working on designs for chairs, which may have included this cane-seated version. While retaining the characteristic low, curved seat and turned legs of Hunt's chairs, Madox Brown introduced a traditional ladder back and incised decoration, the latter recalling the ornament employed on some of his designs for picture frames.

The V&A have a chair of the same design, accession number W.13-1985. They refer to their chair as being one of a pair. 'Madox Brown's two chairs were sold in his executor's sale at 1 St. Edmund's Terrace, Regent's Park (T.G. Wharton), 29th-31st May 1894, lot 18, and bought by Lamont for £5. One chair was subsequently owned by T.R. Lamont and bequeathed by Mrs. Lamont to Martin Secker. It was purchased from the Fine Art Society by the Museum in 1985'.