Seat height: 45.75cm (18 inches)

With carved winged caryatid supports in the form of Nike, Greek Goddess of Victory, terminating in animalier hoof feet, the decoration restored.

This chair embodies the spirit of Regency furniture design. The classical motifs incorporated in its ornament demonstrate the aesthetic ideals of Thomas Hope. Specifically the winged ‘Nike’ arms supports, emerging from Roman acanthus, appear on an armchair designed by Thomas Hope for his Duchess Street mansion, illustrated in his ‘Household Furniture and Interior Decoration’, 1807, pl. LIX.

Similar designs were illustrated by George Smith in ‘A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration’, published in 1808.

The present chair relates very closely to an armchair in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, illustrated in Ralph Edward’s ‘The Dictionary of English Furniture: Volume One’ (Country Life, 1954, p.308, Fig. 268), which shares the same design of legs, frieze, arm supports and stiles, but a different upholstery scheme.

Another chair perhaps from the same suite from the collection of the Holburne Museum, currently on loan to the Herschel House Museum in Bath, is illustrated in ‘The English Chair’ (Moss Harris & Sons, 1948, p. 164, pl. XCII).

This chair is also similar to a pair of chairs which are probably from the same suite, and were formerly in the collection of Duff and Diana Cooper, housed in their London Flat, and are now in a private collection in the USA.