Lot Essay
The parlour chairs, conceived in the French 'cabriolet' fashion, have ribbon-banded tablets of fine figured mahogany let into their Grecian cut-corned tablet rails above splats that are carved with beribboned feathers. The latter, serving as the badge of the Prince of Wales, was introduced around 1780 at Buckingham House (now Palace) and popularized by Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s The Cabinet-Maker's and Upholsterer's Guide 1788; while a pattern for a chair with Grecian tablet cresting featured in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1793 (pl. 49).