Object Description
The mahogany side or dining chair of Sheraton influence with carved and reeded petal uprights on fluted neoclassical front legs with spade feet to rear sabre legs and the original leather upholstered seat, survives from the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
The chair is in very original condition with all of its components surviving with little restoration. We have tightened the joints of the back splat where it joins to the seat frame and have given her a light wax to bring out the wonderful colour and patination in the mahogany, which is beautifully worn in the right areas. The original leather upholstery to the seat is a little tired but fully in tact aside from one small tear which we have made good and some heavy wear to the edgings and makes a nice change from the newly upholstered ones that are more commonplace. She remains stable and sturdy for everyday use.
The influences on Regency design and taste were legion; from Sheraton’s neoclassicism which we see here, Henry Holland’s Anglo-French taste, the Greek revival of Thomas Hope, and the Chinoiserie favoured by the Prince Regent, to an interest in the Gothic, Old English and rustic. The Regency attitude to interior decoration often involved treating each room as a unit with individual furnishings and wall decorations in harmony of theme or colour scheme.
The unadulterated originality here is the key.