The arcade-backed library chairs are richly fretted and cusped in the Elizabethan Gothic fashion promoted around 1800 by the court architect James Wyatt (d. 1813); while their general form still relates to the French antique fashion illustrated by the publications of Thomas Sheraton (d. 1806). Deriving in part from the 'Gothick' chair as published in Thomas Chippendale's, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd ed., 1762 (pl. XVII), they relate in particular to 'Gothic' chair and bookcase patterns in A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, issued in 1808 by George Smith, 'Upholder extraordinary' to George, Prince of Wales, later George IV. An armchair of similar character, bearing a later Windsor Castle brand, is likely to have formed part of a suite commissioned in the early 1800s by the Prince of Wales (F.Collard, Regency Furniture, Woodbridge, 1985, p. 165). In 1801 Messrs Gillows designed some arcade-backed chairs, with similar foliage-capped pillars for Lancaster Castle (S. Stuart, 'Three Generations of Gothic Chairs by Gillows', Furniture History, 1996 p. 39, fig. 6).

These chairs were provided en suite with the bookcase, lot 110 in this sale.