A pair of Georgian mahogany sofas from Powderham Castle sofas/settees

A pair of Georgian mahogany sofas from Powderham Castle sofas/settees, each with a camel back and scroll arms, raised on six fluted square section legs joined by stretchers and set on later Victorian castors (as can be seen in the image).  English, circa 1771.

Provenance:    Supplied to the Courtenay family, Earls of Devon, for Powderham Castle

                        Thence by descent

Literature:  Pictured in situ in the drawing room at Powderham in Country Life, 4^th of July 1963, p.20 fig. 8

A fine pair of camel back settees with mahogany frames, made c.1770, and with important provenance having been supplied to the Earls of Devon at Powderham Castle and thence by family descent until we acquired them.

Powderham Castle is famous in furniture history circles for its associations with the Channon family of Anglo-German cabinet makers, the firm supplying a pair of bookcases with plaques signed by the maker. The chairmaker Benjamin Harmer, associated with Marsh and Tatham, is also known to have supplied furniture to the house but neither of these firms would have supplied the present settees. They, like the vast majority of fine furniture in the house, were supplied by unrecorded makers. The quality of the present settees certainly suggests a London or high end provincial maker.

These settees were pictured in situ in Country Life in 1963, the image reproduced above.  This image shows the Victorian castors.  It is for this reason that we have not replaced these castors with ones more in keeping with early Georgian furniture.