A pair of George II carved limed pine alcove stools, circa 1755, possibly by Paul Saunders

Hugh, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Northumberland House and thence by descent until at least 1874 when Northumberland House was demolished;

Acquired by Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Lord Fairhaven (1900-1973). Probably acquired for Bakeham House near Windsor, which was acquired in 1932, or for the family’s London residence in Park Street;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

For matching examples from the suite

Anderson Art Galleries, New York, 9 February 1926, The Collection of the late Lord Leverhulme, lot 19.

P. Macquoid, English Furniture, Tapestry and Needlework, the Lady Lever Gallery Collections, London, 1928, pl.23, no.74, opposite p.38.

'Furniture at Alnwick', Country Life, 27 April 1929, p. 620, fig. 11.

H. Ceskinsky, English Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, New York, 1968, p. 254.

Helen, Duchess of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle Furniture, 1930, privately printed, figs. 10 & 11.

G. Nares, 'Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire, part III', Country Life, 31 October 1957, fig. 4, p.925.

Christie's New York, 2 February 1978, The Property of the Estate of the late J. Paul Getty, with the provenance of the Earl of Shrewsbury, Ingestre Hall

H. Montgomery-Massingbred and C. Simon Sykes, Great Houses of England and Wales, London, 1994, p. 19, the Red Drawing Room at Alnwick

L. Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, New Haven, 2008, vol. II, no. 80, pp. 816-825.

The history

An eighteenth-century marriage uniting two families that are both wealthy and aristocratic always augurs well for the furniture historian, since these are the occasions that prompted those large construction and refurbishment projects that produced the finest furniture. The 1740 wedding of Elizabeth Seymour, the Baroness Percy, to Sir Hugh Smithson, 2th Baronet, was no exception, since they were the aristocratic power couple behind such iconic period interiors as Syon House and Alnwick Castle. The present pair of stools were created for the vast Picture Gallery of the couple’s London townhouse, Northumberland House.

The “handsome, cultivated and capable”¹ couple started their work on the somewhat neglected Northumberland House in 1750, when Elizabeth’s father died and the two became Earl and Duchess of Northumberland, with Walpole remarking in an 1752 letter to Horace Mann that “they are building at Northumberland-house, at Sion, at Stansted, at Alnwick, and Warkworth Castles!”.² The Picture Gallery, which doubled up as a ballroom, is described in Adriano Aymonino’s thorough discussion of the room as being “a sort of manifesto of the Italophile and classicist culture of Sir Hugh” on account of the stucco decoration and copies of Italian master paintings.³ The room measured 106 feet long and was host to “at least six hundred” at a party on the 6^th November 1761, as recorded by one of the guests present, Count Kielmansegge. In his diary, he writes with admiration of the Picture Gallery’s “two valuable marble chimney-pieces” (today at the V&A, A.60A/1-1951) , “life-size portraits of our host and hostess in their peers’ robes” and the twenty-five-light crystal chandeliers that “li[t] up the room even more brilliantly than is necessary”.⁴ He concluded with the observation that “it would not be easy to imagine a more splendid sight than this gallery presents when filled with people”, and it is amidst this splendour that these stools, which were originally gilt, were placed.

The stools appear to have remained in this room, since the 1786 inventory mentioned “14 scroll headed stools” matching the five sofas with “carved & gilt frames” in the Ball Room,⁵ and they are later clearly visible in an 1865 illustration of the Picture Gallery in The Penny Illustrated Paper.⁶ In the intervening period they were also once restored by Morel and Hughes in 1824, including repair, re-stuffing and re-upholstery.⁷

Northumberland House was, like so many aristocratic London townhouses, demolished in the Victorian period as part of development projects in London. Where it used to stand, on Trafalgar Square opposite the National Gallery, now runs Northumberland Avenue. After the demolition of Northumberland House, the present stools were purchased by the Henry Rovers Broughton, 2^nd Baron Fairhaven (1900–1973), a Major in the Royal Guards of whom several 1920s photographs in his dress uniform have survived (NT 516062.2 at Anglesey Abbey and (GP) 8735 in the Lafayette Archive of the V&A).

The model

The supple decorative motifs on these carved stools are firmly in step with current fashions in artistic interiors in the mid-eighteenth century, including the realistically-modelled paw feet, husks and C-scrolls. However, the ‘gallery stool’ or ‘alcove stool’ form of the pieces themselves is highly rare for this period, on account of the relative scarcity of richly furnished galleries that existed at the time. Since the Royal Academy wouldn’t be founded until the 1760s and the National Gallery wouldn’t appear until the 1820s, the private galleries of cultured aristocrats like the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland were the principal means of displaying prestigious Old Master paintings in dense, gallery hangs. The gallery stool, enabling contemplation and examination, is akin to the high-sided window seat in form, but often far wider. The number of stools commissioned for the gallery reflects the considerable importance accorded to the paintings and fresco decoration of Northumberland House.

One other pair from this suite has appeared a few times at auction, including one instance in 2000 when the final sale price of $401,750 more than quadrupled the low estimate.⁸ While the craftsman behind the stools is unknown, it is highly likely that it they were created by Paul Saunders, since there are large, unitemised bills from the Percys at this period, and he made several documented commissions both for royal and noble clients.⁹

¹ David Pearce, London’s Mansions: The Palatial Houses of the Nobility, London, 1986, p.30.

² See letter 66 to Sir Horace Mann. Oct. 28, N. S. 1752, in H. Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 2, 2003. Available at: <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4610/pg4610.html>

³ A. Aymonino, Enlightened Eclecticism: The Grand Design of the 1^st Duke and Duchesss of Northumberland, New Haven, 2021, p.91.

⁴ Count F. Kielmansegge tr. Countess Kielmansegg, Diary of a Journey to England in the Years 1761–1762, London, 1902, pp.145-147. Available at: <https://archive.org/details/diaryajourneyto01kielgoog/page/n164/>

⁵ Archives of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle, Sy: H/VI/2d, p.63. Reproduced in A. Aymonino and M. Guerci, 'The Architectural Transformation of Northumberland House under the 7^th Duke of Somerset and the 1^st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, 1748–86', Antiquaries Journal, 2016, Appendix 2, p.26.

⁶ The Penny Illustrated Paper, vol VIII, no. 178, 25 Feburary 1865, p.124. Available at: <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000693/18650225/030/0012>.

⁷ Syon MSS U.I.64(1), p.3. Reference taken from C. Baxter, The Transformation of Northumberland House: Interior Decoration and Furniture for the Third Duke of Northumberland by Nicholas Morel and Robert Hughes, MPhil thesis, University of St Andrews, 2000, p.70.

⁸ This result was at Sotheby’s New York, The Collection of Mr and Mrs Steinberg, 26 May 2000, lot 272. More recently offered at Sotheby’s New York, Property From The Collections Of Lily & Edmond J. Safra, 3 November 2005, lot 121 ($251,200)

⁹ These included the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Bedford. See ‘Saunders, Paul (1722–1771), BIFMO, 12 February 2024. Available at: <https://bifmo.furniturehistorysociety.org/entry/saunders-paul-1722-71>