PROBABLY CIRCA 1790 AND RE-DECORATED

A paint analysis undertaken by Catherine Hassall of University College London showed that these chairs have been decorated four times. The original scheme was as the present scheme is now - and indeed the paterae display the original decoration, revealed when later schemes were removed from these areas. The second scheme was pure white and the chairs were subsequently grained in imitation of oak, which was later painted over with the present scheme in the second half of the 20th Century.