This pair of Grecian hall chairs with their Venus-shell and ‘C’ scroll chair-backs are closely related to a set of hall chairs, stamped ‘Gillows Lancaster’, in the entrance hall of Abbot Hall, Kendal (illustrated A. Woodward, ‘Abbot Hall, Kendal’, Country Life, 9 September 1993, fig. 3). Hall chairs of similar form and featuring the Gillows’ stamp are illustrated in M. Burkett, History of Gillows of Lancaster, London, 1969, pl. 114. Another pair of related chairs sold Christie’s, New York, 9 April 2003, lot 53 ($9,321 inc. premium), and a further pair sold, Christie’s, New York, 15 October 2019, lot 308; both pairs bore stamped initials, indicative of them being made by Gillows’ journeymen.
The crest is that of the Waller family of Braywick Lodge, Berkshire, possibly for Sir Jonathan Wathen Waller, 1st Baronet (1769-1853), who was the eye doctor ('surgeon oculist') from 1816 to George III and his son William IV.
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