Jupiter's Chair and Side Table by Mac Collins

For The New Craftsmen’s A Portrait of Place at Holkham Hall, Mac Collins presents Jupiter’s Chair and the accompanying Jupiter’s Side Table.

The chair was initially inspired by the story of a two-thousand-year-old Roman statue of Jupiter found at Holkham that, through the evolution of ideas and the passage of time, had been displaced from its original position at the core of the estate.“I imagined this figure of Jupiter as the central character to the piece. What would his presence, as an object, have been in the central stairway of the Marble Hall? What might his presence have been in a sitting position? And what might that chair have looked like in this instance?”

Much of Mac’s work exists around central characters whose imagined presence and charisma inform the design decisions behind the objects in their possession.This figure of Jupiter has thus become the central character to his first collection for The New Craftsmen. Further inspired by the artefacts, deep red tones of the silk walls and textures of Holkham Hall, Mac’s interpretation of Jupiter’s Lounge Chair is an embodiment of the location, a true portrait of place.

Jupiter’s Chair is an immersive and encompassing piece designed to draw the sitter in. During the residency, the silhouette of the lounge chair first emerged in Mac’s mind.The individual forms that compose the chair draw inspiration from the repeating curves and monumental pillars of the Palladian-style architecture.The crest rail that encloses the sitter is informed by the horseshoe in the mouth of the ostrich, an image seen in the Holkham crest.Though the chair is a contemporary piece, the deep lustre of the waxed finish will pay homage to the traditional furniture pieces found in the hall. These pieces have been produced in collaboration with the talented furniture maker, Daniel Bradley.