THE VEN HOUSE ETRUSCAN SIDE CHAIRS A pair of oval backed etruscan palette side chairs , the backs carved in high relief with an anthemion. The seat rails of serpentine outline and standing on scroll legs at the front and sabre legs at the back. England circa 1780
Seat height 17 ins (44 cms), Width 20 ins (51cms), Depth 17 ins (44 cms) Back height 36 ins (91 cms) Provenance Ven House, Somerset Christie’s 22 June 1999, lot 1050 Mallett Plc
Description Although these elegant chairs retain rococo cabriole legs, the large carved and profile-cut motif in their backs represents an anthemion or honeysuckle flower which derives from Greek and Roman architectural ornament, as do the flower-head paterae carved on the arm terminals
and the fan motifs painted at the tops of the hipped legs. This mixture of styles was quite common in Britain, surviving longer than in France, even into the 1780s.
It is the superb japanning, which has survived in almost mint condition, which is particularly outstanding, the colours remain vivid.
Japanning was the term used from the seventeenth century for various methods of imitating prized oriental lacquer in the West, using coloured varnishes. By the late eighteenth century it had generally come to mean no more than painted decoration. Hepplewhite writes in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide that ‘a new and very elegant fashion has arisen within these few years, of finishing [chairs] with painted or japanned work, which gives a rich and splendid appearance to the minute parts of the ornaments … and by assorting the prevailing colour to the furniture and light of the room, affords opportunity to make the whole accord in harmony.’ (Hepplewhite, George, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, p. 2.)
The choice of orange and white colours on a black ground is that of Greek red-figure pottery of the fifth century B.C. The publication of Sir William Hamilton’s collection of socalled ‘Etruscan’ vases in 1766 was very influential in spreading the neo-classical style in England. In the mid-1770s Robert Adam designed ‘Etruscan’ rooms at Old Derby House in London and at Osterley Park in Middlesex
with furniture in this taste, in the latter case added soon afterwards by Henry Clay. Usually light-weight japanned chairs had caned seats with cushions. These examples are fully upholstered.
Ven House, Somerset Construction of the smaller William and Mary style house, was completed in 1698–1700; the house was enlarged around 1725–30 for James Medlycott by Nathaniel Ireson, who retained the west front of the earlier house. It stands on an artificially raised terrace, and is surrounded by grounds that were laid out at the time by Richard Grange. It was altered and extended by Thomas Cubitt and Decimus Burton in 1835-36. The house passed through the Medlycot family through the 18th and 19th centuries, until they sold much of the estate between 1918 and 1925. The house itself was let to a succession of tenants until Sir Hubert Mervyn Medlycot sold
it in 1957. The house has changed hands four times since 1993, and, in 2006, had a guide price of ÂŁ8.5m. In 2009 the house was and is still owned by Jasper Conran.