AN EARLY VICTORIAN WALNUT ARMCHAIR

The antiquarian library writing-chair, of robust mediaeval folding-stool form wrapped by 'gothic' foliage, derives from a George IV pattern of the mid-1820s invented by the architect A. W. N. Pugin (d. 1852) and published by R. Ackermann in Gothic Furniture in the Style of the 15th Century, 1834/5. The chair is likely to have been supplied by the celebrated Mount Street firm of Holland and Sons, which was involved from the 1830s in supplying the New Palace of Westminster with floriated furniture in Pugin's 'Louis Douze' fashion. It bears the craftsman's brand of William Bryson, whose connection with Messrs Holland and Sons is discussed by C. M. Anderson, 'W. Bryson and the firm of Holland and Sons', Furniture History, 2005, pp. 217-30).