Details
A REGENCY MAHOGANY METAMORPHIC ARMCHAIR
AFTER A DESIGN BY MORGAN AND SAUNDERS, LONDON, CIRCA 1820
With hinged caned seat transforming into red tooled leather library steps, on sabre legs
Provenance
With Phillips of Hitchen Antiques, Ltd., Hertfordshire.
Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Catherine H. Collins Collection.

Lot Essay

The design for this metamorphic armchair corresponds very closely to the design first published in Rudolph 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.’

More from The Collection of Carroll Petrie & European Decorative Arts from the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, including the Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection

View All
View All