A GEORGE IV GOTHIC ELM ARMCHAIR

This handsome parlour chair, with French squab-cushion, reflects the prevailing 'taste for Gothic architecture' encouraged in the 1820s by George IV's aggrandisement of Windsor Castle and by publications such as Rudolph Ackermann's, Repository of Arts, which devoted its 1825-1828 issues to related Gothic furniture. That of 1825 included patterns for a chair 'in the florid style', which had been supplied for Eaton Hall, Cheshire during its aggrandisement by the 2nd Earl Grosvenor's executant architect Benjamin Gummow (d.1844) to the designs of William Porden (d.1822). The architecture of this chair, with its leaf-carved bosses and spring buttresses, can also be compared to that of the magnificent 'Grosvenor' state bed designed by Porden (sold Sotheby's, Eaton Hall, 21 September 1992, lot 136).