Sofa and side chairs

Part of a suite of furniture made for Sir Lawrence Dundas’ Tapestry Room at Moor Park, Hertfordshire, 1771

These pieces are from a suite commissioned by Sir Lawrence Dundas for his tapestry drawing room at Moor Park, Hertfordshire. In 1784, the wall tapestries and furnishings were taken by his son to his London house, where they remained together until 1934, when the tapestries were taken to Aske Hall, Yorkshire, where they remain, and the tapestry furnishings were sold. Some passed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the remaining chairs and a sofa with two cushions are now at Temple Newsam House.

The gilt chairs have oval, slightly curved backs and square tapered legs. The serpentine-fronted seat rails are ornamented with fluting between pearl-beaded and twisted ribbon mouldings. The sofa is basically of identical design. The sofa and chairs were made in London and covered in tapestry commissioned from the Gobelins workshop, where they were woven to a standard cartouche-shaped size which would fit any normal chair frames.

The backs display colourful bunches of flowers tied with ribbons, the seats are strewn with floral sprays and the panels are all different. The sofa and chairs were bought with the aid of a contribution from the LACF in 1975. (Gilbert, C. Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, 1978).