George III Armorial Mahogany Hall Seats or Dining Chairs, Set of 12, Busby Hall

A C R O T E R I O N is pleased to offer this exceptionally important set of twelve circa 1785 English George III period Hepplewhite style hall seats or dining chairs of hall seat form and sturdy solid mahogany construction, the ten side chairs and two armchairs having ovoid backs with unusual 'radiating' splats around original painted Marwood family armorials of 'ram couchant on torse' connecting to 'bow-front' solid plank seats raised on outswept square tapered legs. Eleven squab cushions included raising seat height to 18.5".

Provenance: Busby Hall, North Yorkshire, seat of the Marwood family; presumably ordered by William Marwood (né Metcalfe) (c. 1743 – 1809) who inherited the estate in 1764; private Connecticut collection thence.

Busby Hall is a Grade II listed private Country House in Little Busby, North Yorkshire, England, that sits in the centre of a 700-acre parkland entirely within the North York Moors National Park near the village of Carlton-in-Cleveland. The seat of the Marwood family since 1587, the hall was rebuilt in 1764 to the 'Adamesque' designs of local architect Robert Corney of Kirkleatham after a fire the previous year destroyed the original Elizabethan structure and plans drawn by the preeminent neoclassical architect John Carr of York were mysteriously abandoned.

The Marwood family, descending from King Edward III, have held lands in North Yorkshire since antiquity with the hereditary title 'Baronet of Little Busby' granted in 1660. Notable family members include Sir George Marwood, 1st Baronet, and his son Sir Henry Marwood, 2nd Baronet, who both served consecutively as High Sheriffs of Yorkshire and Members of Parliament for Northallerton, and Arthur Pierson Marwood, a close friend of novelist and poet Ford Madox Ford, the inspiration for the character Christopher Tietjens in his novel 'Parade's End', first published as a tetralogy between 1924 and 1928.