A LOUIS XV GREY-PAINTED MARQUISE

Michael Inchbald noted that this chair was "the original from which Syrie had simpler unmoulded copies made", including one made for her own use in the Drawing Room at Eythrope Park, Buckinghamshire, photographed circa 1935 and reproduced in a watercolour of the bay window corner of the drawing room by Victoria Neel (the first illustrated here; P.C. Metcalf, Syrie Maugham. Creating Glamorous Interiors, New York, 2010, pp. 91 & 95).

With its large, low, deep seat and rich and comfortable upholstery, it is of the type depicted in the famous Jean-François de Troy painting entitled La Lecture de Molière, painted in 1730 (sold from the collection of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Houghton Hall, Norfolk; Christie's London, 8 December 1994, lot 147, £3,961,500).