H. Blairman & Sons Ltd

Designed by Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787-1847)

Manufactured by Samuel Pratt

Oak, with later (perhaps 1930s) ‘stamped plush’ upholstery

105 x 56 x 54 cm

English (London), 1844

From the set of twenty dining chairs supplied in 1844 to Lord Brougham at Brougham Hall, Westmorland (see nineteenth-century image, right); sold at an (unknown to the compiler) auction 1932, perhaps lot 929 or 930 (information from Clive Wainwright, 1991); […]; from twelve chairs with Blairman, 1991; private collection until 2017, sold Sotheby’s, New York (three chairs)

Janet Myles, L.N. Cottingham 1787-1847 Architect of the Gothic Revival (1996), E.33, fig. 129 (the chair from the collection of Dr Clive Wainwright)

According to Janet Myles (unpublished thesis), Cottingham delivered the twenty chairs to Lord Brougham on 2 August 1844.

Of the twelve chairs with Blairman in 1991, one is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (W.2:1, 2-1992), a second belongs to the Cooper Hewitt, New York, and others are in various private collections.  Two further  chairs were sold at Sotheby’s (London), 14 July 1989, lot 319, and two more (likely from the Brougham set) came to light in December 2019.

The third ‘New York’ chair is no longer available.