Designed in the early 19th Century 'antique' style, after the French manner, this caned bergère 'library reading-chair' is fitted with French stuffed leather cushions. With their reed-enriched legs, sunk-panel frame and columnette-supports to the arms, they relate to a pattern illustrated in Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist's Encyclopaedia, 1804. Its back is appropriately serpentined in lyre form alluding to that of an Apollo chair, illustrated by Thomas Sheraton in his Cabinet Encyclopaedia, 1807, pl. 10. Messrs Gillow, in their Estimate Sketch Book for 31 March 1803 (Westminster Public Library, mss. no. 1721) refer to this form of bergère as Ashburnham, while by 1807 it is referred to as an Uxbridge chair after one supplied to Henry Bayly, 1st Earl of Uxbridge. A related pair of library bergeres was sold from Mere Hall, Cheshire, Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 197 (£29,900) and latterly sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 4 July 2002, lot 153 (£83,650) while a related pair supplied to Broughton Hall by Gillows 1811-13 are illustrated in C. Hussey, English Country Houses: Late Georgian, Glasgow, 1958, p. 95, fig. 166.