AFTER A DESIGN BY MORGAN AND SANDERS, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The design of this metamorphic armchair corresponds closely to the design first published in Ackermann's Repository of Arts, in July 1811 and captioned 'This ingenious piece of furniture is manufactured at Messrs. Morgan and Sanders's, Catherine-St. Strand' (P. Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture & Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, p. 60, pl. 29). This chair was 'considered the best and handsomest article ever yet invented, where two complete pieces of furniture are combined in one - an elegant and truly comfortable armchair and a set of library steps'. A closely related chair is at Trinity College, Oxford (R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. ed., 1954, vol. II, p. 291, fig. 15). This particular model of armchair with its scrolled anthemion-enriched toprail and its palm-splat is unusually decorative.