Fine Walnut & Marquetry Chair Back Settee in the Anglo-Dutch Manner - Probably by Bath Cabinet Makers Ltd c.1910

Fine walnut and marquetry chair back settee in the Anglo-Dutch manner, probably by Bath Cabinet Makers Ltd, c.1910. It is of finely patinated walnut, this fine piece combines two chair backs in the George I manner with shell carved details and highly distinctive anthemion's with punched detailing. The arms on the settee are of shepherds’ crook form and the back splats incorporate not only highly delicate and detailed carving but also inlaid marquetry featuring vases of flowers. The front legs on the piece are of cabriole form with shell carved knees and claw and ball feet. Another settee of this design, with identical inlay to one splat and a slightly different design on the other, sold on the art market in 2021. It was labelled by Bath Cabinet Makers, thus giving us the likely maker of our piece. A nearly identical settee to the present piece is in the collection of the V&A and can be seen online here In fact the only major difference between the V&A example and ours is the way that the two splat backs meet in the middle. The applied carving, including that very unusual anthemion motif that has a planished or punched finish, appears to be the product of the same workshop. In their cataloguing for the piece, the V&A suggest a date of 1760-80 which seems unlikely to be the case given the overall style of the settee and suggests that they perhaps have reservations about the true age of their piece. Although pieces in an earlier style would still have been made for clients looking to match earlier pieces, there would only have been a limited demand for this sort of service and it seems likely that the piece was made at an earlier date. The V&A mention that what they believe to be the pair to their settee is in the collection of the ‘Museum fur Kunst & Ind in Vienna’, presumably what is now the MAK? Also in the collection of the V&A is an armchair with the same distinctive anthemion with punched finish Confusingly, the museum catalogue this piece as earlier in date than the settee and as probably Dutch whereas the settee is catalogued as English. Again it seems more likely that these pieces, and the present settee, are the products of an Anglo-Dutch workshop, all produced around about the same time. A further example that can be added to this small corpus is another chair back settee, this time executed in mahogany rather than walnut. It was sold at Christie’s on the 21st of November 1985 in London and featured in the Christies Review of the Season published in 1986. This settee made £28,080 that year and, again, appears highly likely to have come from the same workshop. There is no marquetry employed here and, obviously, mahogany rather than walnut has been used. The applied anthemions are still present but interestingly the applied shells used on the walnut chair back examples were not utilised on this piece. The Bath Cabinet Makers Company: Founded in 1892, BCM was a highly successful British company that traded in its original form until 1959, primarily under the management of the Richter family who also acted as chief designers for much of that period. Unlike many of their competitors, they did not have one set style, working in a vast variety of cabinetmaking styles from tributes to the makers of the 18th century in England and Europe more widely to modernism and Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Amongst the firm’s many notable contracts were those to fit out the Cunard liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. The firm won many prizes at international exhibitions in its long history and its pieces were always of a high standard. The firm’s work ranged from veneered items to those made in the solid. A real feather in the firm’s cap was its widespread acceptance by the luxury retailers of the day. One of its major stockists was Harrods. A Fine 19th Century Walnut and Marquetry Chair Back Settee in the Anglo-Dutch Manner