Footnotes

• The basic design for this type of chair appeared in Ackermann's 'The Repository' in September 1810 alongside a more conventional bergere with a reading stand, where it is recorded that:
  'The second is a more novel article but equally convenient and pleasant: gentle-men either sit across, with the face towards the desk, contrived for reading, writing &c. and which, by a rising rack, can be elevated at pleasure; or, when its occupier is tired of the first position, it is with greatest ease turned around in a brass grove, to either side or the other; in which case, the gentleman sits sideways. The circling arms in either way form a very pleasant easy back, and also, in every direction, supports for the arms. As a proof of their real comfort and convenience, they are now if great sale at the ware-rooms of the inventors, Messrs. Morgan and Saunders, Catherine Street, Strand.'
  
  The design is reproduced in P.Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture and Interiors, London, 1984, p.54
  
  A pair of matched reading chairs attributed to Morgan and Saunders and with the same hinged sliding reading stand was sold Christie's London, 11 April 1991, lot 54, one of the chairs bearing the stamp of the London furniture brokers, T Willson of 68 Great Queen Street. See also Sotheby's, London, 6 June 2006, lot 361 for another chair with sliding reading stand from the Collection of the late Donald Sinclair.

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Category: Furniture / English Furniture and Works of Art

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