A Pair of George III Giltwood Armchairs attributed to John Linnell, Circa 1775

With Stephen Moore Ltd, Lewes, East Sussex 1958

British Antique Dealers' Association Art Treasures Exhibition, The Octagon Room, Bath 29 May - 7 June 1958, no.289

The form of this lot is very similar to a watercolour design by John Linnell dated to c.1770-1775 in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London [E.82-1929] (illustrated in Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Linnell Eighteenth Century London Furniture Makers, London 1980, Vol.II p.45 fig.87). The design shares the concave oval back and highly distinctive armrest terminal of spherical form surrounded by acanthus leaves. Armchairs of this model with central cartouches on the crest and front seat rails are in Harewood House, Yorkshire and Inverary Castle, Argyll (Hayward and Kirkham, p.45-46 figs.88-89). A further pair formerly with Mackinnon London was recently sold at Dreweatt's, Newbury 18 November 2025, lot 3, and a related set of armchairs is in the Turquoise Drawing Room at Castle Howard, Yorkshire.

John Linnell (1729–1796) together with his father William (1703-1763) ran one of the most successful London cabinet-making firms of the first half of George III"s reign aand rivalled preeminent workshops like those of Thomas Chippendale, Ince & Mayhew and Vile & Cobb. Based in fashionable Berkeley Square in Mayfair, the Linnells worked for some of the most important wealthy and aristocratic clients of their era including the Earl of Coventry at Croome Court, the Dukes of Bedford at Badminton House, Sir Nathaniel Curzon Bt at Kedleston and Robert Child Esq at Osterley Park. John Linnell was a trained draughtsman who closely followed trends in contemporary French furniture production, particularly the early neoclassical goût grec aesthetic espoused by designers like Jean-Charles Delafosse and Richard de Lalonde.