Three Side Chairs, circa 1875

The present lot is closely related to chairs designed by William Burges for his rooms at 15 Buckingham Street, Strand, and those installed later in Melbury Road, Holland Park. By the 1870s Holland Park, whose residents now included Lord Leighton, Val Prinsep and Luke Fildes, had begun to rival St John's Wood and Chelsea as an 'artistic' area. It was here, on Melbury Road, that in 1875 Burges located a site for his new home ’Tower House', completed in 1878. The chairs appear in the volume of photographs "The House of William Burges ARA "(1885) compiled by Burges' brother-in-law, R.P. Pullan (plate 19). A further sketch for related ‘Merman' and ‘Mermaid’ decorated chairs, with similar rushed seats, can be seen on sheets 27 and 30 in the Burges 'Furniture Album’ in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (V&A 93. E8).