A George IV Stool Made for Windsor Castle

A highlight is this George IV carved and pollard oak stool. Supplied in 1827–8 for the New Corridor at Windsor Castle, it was made by the renowned firm Morel & Seddon, who were commissioned by King George IV to furnish the entirety of Windsor Castle.

The intricate gothic tracery design is attributed to A.W.N. Pugin, one of the era’s leading architects and a visionary pioneer of the Gothic Revival movement. As such, it represents the remarkable intersection of royal patronage, master artisanship, and the aesthetic ideals of the period.

A Rediscovered Portrait Bust of James Northcote by Sir Francis Chantrey

Among the sculptures in the auction is an impressive marble portrait bust by Sir Francis Chantrey R.A. (1781–1842). For the last thirty years, it remained in a private collection, during which time the sitter’s identity was unknown. Research has since revealed that it is almost certainly Chantrey’s portrait of fellow artist James Northcote, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1812 - a work long believed lost!

Two depictions of Northcote by Chantrey are known: the best known is the 1831 life-size seated memorial figure at Exeter Cathedral; the second is a plaster cast of the bust presented by Lady Chantrey to the Ashmolean in 1842. Despite damage to the plaster, it is evidently closer to life, showing brows and skin imperfections more clearly. It is likely that for the bust he presented at the Royal Academy, Chantrey smoothed these features, giving the sitter the idealised, ageless surface associated with the Ancients.

James Northcote died at his home in Argyll Place, London, in 1831, leaving a small fortune and bequeathing “£1000 to the sculptor Francis Chantrey for his monument to be placed in St Andrew’s Church, Plymouth” (although it ultimately went to Exeter Cathedral). Northcote earned his wealth as a portraitist, narrative and genre painter, and author, and was the biographer of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1786 and a full member in 1787, he exhibited there every year from 1781 to 1825 (except 1790). His work spanned portraits, literary subjects for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, genre scenes, and animal paintings.

A Roman Marble Draped Male Torso

Dating from the 2nd century A.D., this Roman marble sculpture of a draped male torso was once owned by Sir Frederick Cook (1817–1901), 1st Baronet of Doughty House, Richmond, and later inherited by Sir Francis Cook, 4th Baronet. The collection formed by Sir Francis Cook with the assistance of Sir John Charles Robinson at Doughty House, Richmond is known today mainly for the number of extraordinary pictures that it once included, among work by Metsu, Poussin, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Van Eyck, Velázquez and Rembrandt. However, this passion for paintings began after 1868 and before this time he had already assembled in Portugal and in England a notable and extensive collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan marble, bronzes, and ceramics.

In the 20th century, Cook's grandson Herbert enriched the collection by acquiring numerous masterpieces and adding notable works from the Venetian High Renaissance. However, financial adversity and the turmoil of World War II led to the collection's dispersal in the mid 20th century.

As part of his passion, Cook allowed historians and scholars access to his work, to photograph, sketch and record it for posterity. Professor Adolf Michaelis a German archaeologist and academic specialising in Greco-Roman antiquity, was one such scholar allowed access. Of the 82 works he catalogued at Doughty, this torso was number 44 and he recorded it as follows: "Upper half of a male portrait statue, from about the middle of the thigh, where it is cut off square: evidently the statue was originally put together out of two pieces. The treatment of the cloak corresponds to the Marbury statue (ibid No. 18). The R. hand lies on the tip of the cloak which falls down from the L. breast, the L. with remains of the roll in lowered. The head is missing....".

Eugénie Strong also photographed and described the torso in her book from 1908, "The flatness of the planes and the treatment of the drapery seem to show that this is a copy of a fifth century original. The man appears to hold a roll in his left hand, whilst his right grips the end of the cloak which falls over the left shoulder. I know no precise replica of the type, although similar motives recur, as pointed out by Michaelis, in so-called statues of philosophers (cf Clarac-Reinach, p.512, 7, 8) and the Demosthenes of the Vatican and Knole."

A Rare and Large Portuguese Silk Needlework

The auction features a fine selection of textiles, including a rare and exceptionally large Portuguese silk needlework picture depicting St Anthony of Padua and the Mule. At the time of cataloguing, our specialists were unable to find directly comparable examples.

Given its scale, it may have been commissioned for a private or public devotional space; however, the richness of the setting, the costumes, and the details suggest it may equally have been intended for a private secular interior. The precise source of the composition has not yet been identified, though it appears partly inspired by artists such as Francesco Belotto, with a particular emphasis on the landscape and the fashionable clothing and hairstyles of the attendant courtly women.

The Peter Fowler Collection

Dreweatts also has the honour of presenting selected items from the collection of the late Peter Fowler MBE (1938-2025). Peter Fowler was a visionary newspaper publisher who, through his company Peter Press, consolidated and expanded regional media in Northern Scotland. In 2002, Peter was named on the New Year's Honours' List and awarded an MBE for his services to the newspaper industry and to charity.

This impressive collection includes furniture sculpture and garden ornaments, with a particular focus on 17th and 18th century English furniture incorporating unusual and rare timbers. Carefully curated over decades, the selected contents from Peter's properties in Scotland, London and the Cotswolds will be presented at auction for the first time.

A particular highlight of the collection is a George II yew and elm Gothic Windsor armchair. Eighteenth-century Windsor chairs with Gothic-shaped backs and pierced splats are considered the pinnacle of the form, produced as fashionable pieces from the mid-18th century onward. Although now rare, they were once regularly made and appear in invoices from St Paul’s Churchyard chair-makers during the second quarter of the century.

Chairs of this type owe much to the Gothic revival in architecture and furniture of the period, a style famously exemplified by Horace Walpole (1717–1797) at Strawberry Hill, the house he transformed with Gothic tracery windows and ornamental detailing - an aesthetic closely associated with this type of seating.

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Auction Details

Tuesday 2 & Wednesday 3 December, 10.30am GMT
Dreweatts, Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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