A CHINESE EXPORT BAMBOO OPEN ARMCHAIR

The framing of the present chair relates to chairs are illustrated in William Chambers, Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils, 1757, pl. xiii and xiv. Its bergère form and fan-pattern tablet relates to chair patterns published in the 1790s by Hepplewhite & co. and Thomas Sheraton. The same pattern chairs, appear to have formed part of the exotic furnishings introduced to the chinoiserie Royal Pavilion, Brighton, created by the architect Henry Holland (d.1806) about 1801 for George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV (C. Musgrave, Regency Furniture, London, 1961, pl. 24a.). Related Cantonese chairs and their accompanying vase-stands, which may have been purchased by John Crace (d. 1819) from an East India Company trader about 1802 for the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, feature in the saloon and red and blue drawing rooms, in John Nash's Views of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, 1826.