Theodore Alexander Living Room The Wootton Hall Chair AL40023 at Brownlee's Furniture

Item Description

Product Description A finely carved mahogany hall chair, the arched cartouche back with acanthus leaf details centred by the hand painted Spencer crest, the solid seat above a swag carved seat rail on square tapering legs.

Collection Features A finely mahogany hall chair. The original George III, in The Wootton Hall at Althorp. The striking Palladian hall you first enter incorporates a series of country scenes by the English artist John Wootton (c. 1682-1764)- which lends the hall its name. Wootton's fame rests as the specialist English sporting painter of his day. Among other commissions, he executed similar designs for the Great Hall at Longleat. He would not have painted in situ, but in a studio in London, having taken measurements of the spaces that needed to be filled. They were painted as part of scheme ordered by the Fifth Earl of Sunderland, who, like his brother and heir at Althorp, was a passionate fox-hunter. The life size studies of the Earl's favorite mounts face the visitor on entering. The canvases running the length of sides, show Lord Spencer and his friends riding with the Althorp and Pytchley hounds with the riders individuals identified. The ruins of nearby Holdenby castle, the core of which still survives today, further identify the scenes. The detail of hall's construction are not fully recorded, but it is probably by Colin Campbell, through he died in 1729 before the work was undertaken. Roger Morris completed the commission in 1733.For many tastes the hall's proportions make it the most satisfying room in the house, with a cool dignity, appropriately lit. Pevsner calls it 'the noblest Georgian room in the county'. The airiness comes from the high ceiling which rises almost to the height of the house. Its deeply coffered coving bears an octagonal design, with eagles on the corner buttresses. Beneath there is a frieze alternating plaster fox heads with hounds.