Pair of George I Period Walnut Chairs

No: 11209

A fine early 18th. Century Pair of Anglo Dutch Walnut Side Chairs, in the manner of Daniel Marot, the scrolling top rails with a central shell carved cartouche flanked by panels of foliate carving, the central vase shaped splat flanked by hipped, scrolling, shaped uprights, the balloon shaped seats with serpentine fronts and a shaped frieze raised on cabriole front legs with foliate carved cartouches flanked by s-shaped scrolls and terminating in well carved ball and claw feet, the legs all united by shaped stretchers.

Circa 1720

Price: £4500-00p.

Height: 43”,(109cm), Width: 21”, (53.5cm) Depth: 21”, (53.5cm)

Daniel Marot ( 1662 – 1752)

Born in Paris in about 1662, the son of Jean Marot a well known architect and engraver. In his youth he worked with his father and gained quite a reputation as an engraver enjoying patronage from the crown. Marot was a Protestant and in 1684, the year before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, sought refuge in Holland, where almost immediately he entered the service of the Prince of Orange. In 1686, he is found at The Hague where he designed the Audience Chamber.

He was appointed Master of the Works to the Prince and decorated the apartments at William’s new Het Loo Palace in 1692, in a taste appreciably influenced by Berain. Important as were his architectural labours, his designs for interior decoration and furniture achieved a wider fame.

Marot styled himself “Architecte de Roy de la Grandes Bretagne” after the Accession of William III in 1689. Although William III was King of England until his death in 1702, Marot appears to have left England in 1698 and spent the last part of his long life in Holland, dying there in 1752.

The arrival of William III to England brought many Hugenot craftsmen who introduced the fashion of making furniture in walnut rather than oak and producing finely carved furniture and intricate seaweed marquetry.

Many features lead one to assume that they were made by Dutch-trained craftsmen and several similar chairs, often in pairs, can be seen in houses all over England.