A GEORGE III MAHOGANY ARMCHAIR

This library chair, intended to be furnished with leather squab cushions, is a notable example of a highly fashionable pattern in the George II 'Chinese' manner. Its fretted-trellis back derive from the type of patterns published in W. Halfpenny Twenty New Designs of Chinese Lattice (1750). The octagonal form of the central tablet is featured on a Chinese chair pattern in Chippendale's Director, 1754, pl. XXVII. Chippendale considered these chairs 'very proper for a Lady's Dressing-Room; especially if it is hung with India paper...They have commonly cane bottoms, with loose cushions'.
The chair closely relates to the well-known set of chairs and matching window seat commissioned by the 4th Duke of Beaufort for Badminton House, Gloucestershire and still at the house (see P. Macquoid, The Age of Mahogany, London, 1906, p. 258, pl. 245).