A PAIR OF GEORGE I WALNUT SIDE CHAIRS

These side chairs display a typed label for 'Cecilia, Countess of Strathmore', a title which only applied between 1904-1922. As this appears to denote the chairs were her own property, it might suggest that they were inherited directly from her own family, her father being a grandson of the 4th Duke of Portland and Cecilia herself being a great-grandaughter of Richard, 1st Marquess Wellesley, brother of Napoleon's vanquisher the 1st Duke of Wellington. Equally plausible, however, is that they could have been given or inherited from her husband's family. Cecilia married Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in 1881, and they made Glamis Castle in Angus their home, where their youngest daughter, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother was brought up.