Seat
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1760 - circa 1770
Materials
Mahogany, silk damask, braid
Measurements
48 x 94 x 50 cm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 871489.1
Summary
A mahogany and upholstered seat and library steps, one of a near set of three, English, circa 1760-70. Having a later padded seat upholstered in later red silk damask edged with gilt braid. Of unusual form, with a deep frieze or apron at either end, and raised on six chamfered square-section legs joined by side stretchers.
Full description
These seats, with deep friezes or aprons at either end, and deep central cross-stretchers (to two of them), were probably made to function as simple library steps when standing vertically on one short end. They may have been used in the Library designed by Robert Adam in 1768 but which was repurposed as a Dining Room in 1780. The benches bear strong similarities to two open armchairs at Saltram, NT 871317 and 871449, and so may once have been part of a larger set of furniture. The three seats are not all the same: one is fitted with castors whilst another has a shallow (rather than deep) central cross-stretcher.
Provenance
At Saltram by 1951 and accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of full payment of Death Duty from the Executors of Edmund Robert Parker (1877 - 1951), 4th Earl of Morley.