Master’s chair
Date
ca.1750
Creator
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (object): 1425mm
width (object): 800mm
depth (object): 740mm
width (object): 800mm
depth (object): 740mm
Subject
Content object
Description
An English-made master’s chair in mahogany, carved and joined, with a shaped top-rail carved with scrolls and acanthus leaves. The chair has a gothic splat with a central oval carved with leaves and scrolls. The arms have snarling dog-mask handles and leaf-carved supports. The buttoned seat has been recovered in red leather. The chair has leaf-carved cabriole legs joined by a turned H-stretcher and animal pawed feet.
Object history
Presented by an unknown donor, before 1896.
The chair was in the Royal Society’s care in 1896, when it was one of several items of furniture requested for exhibition at Bethnal Green: ‘Sir Isaac Newton’s chair; chair presented by Sir Joseph Banks (1750), the President’s chair, and the Boyle air-pump…’, Letter, Arthur James Richens Trendell, Science and Art Loan Department, South Kensington, to Lord Lister, Royal Society. Royal Society Miscellaneous Manuscripts MM/17/102; with supplementary letters NLB/12/820, NLB/13/54 and 184, and NLB/14/447. However, the unsourced attribution to Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) seems questionable, unless the implication is that he presented an item of furniture of earlier date (eg 1750 is not the date of donation).
The seat is recorded very briefly in The record of the Royal Society of London: supplement to the fourth edition for the years 1940-1989 by John S. Rowlinson and Norman H. Robinson (London, Royal Society, 1992), p.90. ‘A tall walnut buttoned leather-backed chair, c.1720, from the Society’s former home in Crane Court’. However, the note appears to confuse this piece of furniture with the President’s chair, since the Master’s chair is not leather backed.
The chair was in the Royal Society’s care in 1896, when it was one of several items of furniture requested for exhibition at Bethnal Green: ‘Sir Isaac Newton’s chair; chair presented by Sir Joseph Banks (1750), the President’s chair, and the Boyle air-pump…’, Letter, Arthur James Richens Trendell, Science and Art Loan Department, South Kensington, to Lord Lister, Royal Society. Royal Society Miscellaneous Manuscripts MM/17/102; with supplementary letters NLB/12/820, NLB/13/54 and 184, and NLB/14/447. However, the unsourced attribution to Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) seems questionable, unless the implication is that he presented an item of furniture of earlier date (eg 1750 is not the date of donation).
The seat is recorded very briefly in The record of the Royal Society of London: supplement to the fourth edition for the years 1940-1989 by John S. Rowlinson and Norman H. Robinson (London, Royal Society, 1992), p.90. ‘A tall walnut buttoned leather-backed chair, c.1720, from the Society’s former home in Crane Court’. However, the note appears to confuse this piece of furniture with the President’s chair, since the Master’s chair is not leather backed.
Associated place