Reading chair
manner of Morgan and Sanders (fl. 1801 - 1820)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1810
Materials
Mahogany, beech, leather, brass, webbing, horsehair
Measurements
84 x 60 x 48.5 cm; 57.5 cm (Depth)
Place of origin
The Strand
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 872563
Summary
A mahogany reading or library chair, English, circa 1810, in the manner of Morgan and Sanders (fl. 1801-20). Of fine quality, with a bowed arm fitted with a bookrest of finely figured mahogany on an adjustable easel support. The back with three slender roundel-centred splats. The compass-shaped seat upholstered in crimson buttoned leather fixed with brass dome-headed nails, and on turned and tapering front legs and outswept rear legs, all with brass caps and castors..
Full description
The end of the eighteenth century saw the introduction of furniture for increasingly specialised purposes. This chair - on which the reader would sit facing the back and bookrest - was first designed by Morgan & Sanders, a firm who specialised in patent furniture such as folding chair beds and metamorphic library steps. There is a particularly good collection of library steps and chairs at Saltram, which the Parkers probably purchased following the remodelling of the library in 1819.
Provenance
Possibly acquired circa 1820 by John Parker (1772 - 1840), 1st Earl of Morley, and thence by descent to Edmund Robert Parker (1877 - 1951), 4th Earl of Morley and accepted in part payment of death duties by HM Treasury from his executors and transferred to the National Trust in 1957.
Makers and roles
manner of Morgan and Sanders (fl. 1801 - 1820), designer