Regency Mahogany Metamorphic Library Armchair/steps

No: 1224

A Regency Mahogany Metamorphic Library Armchair/Steps with a caned back and seat beneath a rope or cable twist carved top rail, flanked by reeded scrolling arms and rope twist and reeded uprights, the reeded front rail seat opening to a set of carpet lined steps, raised on square reeded and sabred legs with brass caps and castors

Attributed to Messrs Morgan and Saunders

Circa 1810

Price: £10,250-00p.

Height: 35½”,(90cm) Width: 23¼”,(59cm) Depth: 18½”,(47cm)

Lit.:

Ackermann`s Repository of the Arts, Series 1, Volume 6, Plate 3, Page 40, July 1811 “Metamorphic Library Chair, Under this head we this month present our readers with a representation and description of a truly novel and useful article called the Metamorphic Library Chair. This Chair, which forms at the same time, a complete set of library steps, is considered the best and handsomest article ever yet invented, where two complete pieces of furniture are combined in one – an elegant and truly comfortable armchair and set of library steps. The latter is as firm, safe and solid as a rock, and may, with the greatest ease, by merely lifting up with the right hand the back of the chair, be metamorphosed into a complete an armchairs can be wished for. It may be made of Mahogany or any other wood and to any shape or size, either as represented in the plate, or with caned back and sides, and French stuffed cushions covered with Morocco leather &c. This ingenious piece of furniture is manufactured at Messrs. Morgan and Saunders`s, Catherine-st. Strand.”

The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture by Ralph Edwardes, pp 338, 339, 340 & 241, pl 10 & 11. pp 672 “Morgan and Saunders (1801-17) Upholsterers and Cabinetmakers, Trafalgar House, 16 & 17, Catherine St., Strand. Took out patents for various forms of mechanical furniture: ‘Imperial’ extending dining tables, sofa-beds, portable chairs, ‘Brass Screw’ bedsteads etc., illustrated and described in a firm ‘s trade label…..They supplied Nelson’s furniture for the Victory and received a large order just before the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 for furnishing his seat at Merton in Surrey making for what was known as the ‘Trafalgar patent Sideboard’.

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