Lot Essay
This impressive, classically inspired daybed with its throne-like back carved with a large scale Grecian anthemion relates to designs after the antique by Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842) and Thomas Hope (1768-1831). In 1794 Tatham was sent by the influential architect Henry Holland to Italy to study ancient design sources and a pattern for an 'antique seat' in his Etchings Representing the Best Examples of Ancient Ornamenal Architecture Drawn from the Originals in Rome and Other Parts of Italy, during the years 1794, 1795 and 1796, illustrates a throne chair with similar anthemion-carved back, pl.79. A design for the supports of a side table by Thomas Hope, the celebrated collector and connoisseur, in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, displays the same combination of an anthemion and boldly drawn scrolls.