Footnotes

Provenance
The offered lot was almost certainly formerly with Lord Roundway where it was housed in the Cabinet Room, Roundway House, Wiltshire.
Thereafter it would have belonged to Marjorie Wiggin Prescott, Belle Haven, Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.A.

The present armchairs originally formed part of a set of four dating to circa 1780. One example from this group is illustrated in C.C. Stevens and S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, 1989, Woodbridge, pp.'s 66-67. Reference therein is drawn by Stevens and Whittington both to the clear influence of the Louis XVI style in the design of these English chairs as well as to the excellent quality of the painted decoration in the execution of the flowers on the oval copper panels of the backs.

An identical one to the offered model, probably also forming part of this exact same set, appears in L. Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Vol. II, fig.'s 400-401, p. 400. Interestingly, Wood posits therein that such chairs are undoubtedly the work of the cabinet maker George Brookshaw and hence by extension it seems logical to attach this attribution to the above.

The authors, Stevens and Whittington, instead previously put forward the hypothesis that this floral painting was probably completed by the same artist - Angelica Kauffmann - who decorated a pair of display cabinets or bookcases, circa 1775, one of which features in M. Jourdain and F. Rose, English Furniture, The Georgian Period (1750-1830), 1953, London, pl.'s 12 & 13, pp.'s 49-50. However this would now seem to be a defunct point of view since Wood has clearly undertaken much more recent and arguably more extensive research in this area.

Another chair, most likely from the same set, is illustrated in C. Musgrave, Adam and Hepplewhite and other Neo-Classical Furniture, 1966, London, fig. 72. Whilst a suite of painted and parcel gilt seat furniture, which is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, in Merseyside, has some similar characteristics. In particular, as Stevens and Whittington note: "...the armchairs and ends of the settee having oval backs moulded with ribbon tied 'fasces' reeding and vase-shaped splats painted with classical scenes and similar flower sprays to the current example." One armchair from this comparable group is in R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Vol I., revised edition, 2000, New York, pl. XVI.