A set of six George II gilt and scarlet-japanned side chairs, each profusely decorated throughout with outstanding gilded chinoiserie scenes on a scarlet japanned ground with figures and floral motifs, the vase shaped splat and tapering caned seat standing upon cabriole front legs terminating in ball and claw feet united by turned stretchers connecting the back swept legs
To find a set of six chairs of this quality and in this original condition is exceptionally rare.
Giles Grendey, born in Gloucestershire in 1693, is widely considered one of England’s greatest cabinet-makers, renowned for fine japanned decoration of this type, his work represents the pinnacle of English lacquer work of
the eighteenth century.
Apprenticed in 1709 and a freeman in 1716, Grendey built up a considerable business over the course of his lifetime, completing significant domestic and international commissions. Articles from his most famous commission, the Infantado Suite – widely considered the greatest single commission of English furniture in the eighteenth century – for the Palace of Lazcano in Spain are now in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Temple Newsam House, Leeds, the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia and the Museo de las Artes Decorativas in Madrid.
He was appointed Upper Warden of the Joiners’ Company in 1747 and its Master in 1766. By the time of his death in 1780 he had established royal connections via his son-in-law John Cobb to King George III and produced an output that would be lauded and revered by connoisseurs in the following centuries.