A MATCHED PAIR GEORGE III OF DARK-GREEN-PAINTED WINDSOR ARMCHAIRS, each with deeply-curved toprail centred by a pierced stylised serpent cresting above a railed back, one with central baluster rail to back, and pierced rectangular arm-supports with dished seat and baluster legs joined by baluster-turned stretchers, one with back legs and three stretchers replaced, variations in size and design, previously green and red-painted, one with back spindle detached, one with section of seat replaced

The Property of THE SHELL MUSEUM, GLANDFORD, NORFOLK Sold by Order of the Trustees These four chairs form a small group with another high comb-back Windsor armchair that is now lost, but was formerly in the collection of Edwin Skull, one of the great High Wycombe Windsor chair manufacturers in the mid and late 19th century. The group are almost certainly the earliest surviving Windsor chairs, although it is obviously difficult to date precisely some of the more primitive West Country examples. The Skull chair, though high-backed, is recognisably of the same constructional form as the present chairs. It also has a central spirally-twisted column in the back, and a conforming front stretcher which is a stylistic survival of the Carolean tradition. Although the earliest provenanced Windsor chairs date from the 1770s, there are numerous literary and trade card references from the second quarter of the century to suggest that they were already popular. In 1724 Lord Percival relates a visit to Hall Barn, Buckinghamshire: 'My wife carry'd in a "Windsor" chair like those at Versailles, by which means she lost nothing worth the seeing' (see: T. Cripsin, The English Windsor Chair, London, 1992, p. 6)

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