THREE MID-19TH CENTURY, ONE OF LATER DATE AND MADE TO MATCH, AFTER DESIGNS BY A.W.N. PUGIN

These chairs would appear to be an iteration, with slight modification, of the 'light but strong chamfered chair' invented in 1850 at the architect Charles Barry's request by A.W.N. Pugin (d. 1852) for general use in the Commons lobbies at the New Palace of Westminster and executed by firms such as Holland and Sons, Gillows of London and Lancaster and Crace. A sketch of the chair pattern appears in a letter of November 1850, to J.G. Crace (d. 1889) from Pugin concerning the standard chair for the House of Commons (A. Wedgwood, A.W.N. Pugin, London, 1985, no. 481 and I. Ross (ed.), The Houses of Parliament: History, Art, Architecture, London, 2000, pp. 166-172).