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AN IRISH EARLY VICTORIAN OAK, METAMORPHIC LIBRARY CHAIR, attributed to WILLIAMS & GIBTON, circa 18..

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AN IRISH EARLY VICTORIAN OAK, METAMORPHIC LIBRARY CHAIR, attributed to WILLIAMS & GIBTON, circa 18..
AN IRISH EARLY VICTORIAN OAK
METAMORPHIC LIBRARY CHAIR, attributed to WILLIAMS & GIBTON, circa 1835, with bobbin-turned triple splat back and solid seat enclosing three treads,
on bobbin-turned legs, lacking brass cap to one finial
94.5cms high (closed).
e800/1,200
The concept of this metamorphic chair/library steps is inspired by the prototype first published in Ackermann's Repository of Arts, July 1811. Captioned 'This ingenious piece of furniture is manufactured at Messrs. Morgan and Sanders's, Catherine-St. Strand', 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' (P. Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture
& Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, p. 60, pl. 29).

The earliest Regency examples were armchairs executed in mahogany in a restrained Grecian taste. However, this chairs' rich bobbin-turning, considered as 'Old English'
by antiquarians and Wardour Street dealers in the second quarter of the 19th Century, reflects the revival of interest in old 'Elizabethan' furniture, a taste introduced particularly by George Lucy (d.1845) at Charlecote Park, Warwickshire in the 1830s and 1840s.