Lot Essay
A music chair of the same overall design but with a fluted seatrail and plain turned legs is at Osterley Park, Middlesex, and is illustrated in M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1982, p. 149, no. Q/18. It is not in the 1782 inventory of Osterley and it is suggested that it is a Regency chair decorated in the Adam style. Illustrations of the period suggest that specailly-designed musical seat-furniture appeared only in the early 19th Century. This is supported by the presence of a Gillow design of 1825 for a musical stool with this mechanism.