According to research carried out by Blairman Antiques, the Beckford provenance for this chair is confirmed by the presence of his armorial cinquefoil at the junction of the x-frame front legs. The relatively diminutive scale of the chair points to Lansdown Tower, which, with its small-scale rooms, is the chair’s likely original home. This aspect of the provenance is further indicated by the barrel-headed tops of the legs, which relate to features found on other furniture and in architectural details at the Tower (see Amy Frost, ‘Beckford’s Treasure Chest returns to Lansdown Tower’, Furniture History Society Newsletter, February 2012, pp. 1-5). Six ‘BLACK ANTIQUE SHAPED ELBOW CHAIRS, with gilt ornaments, the backs and seats covered with crimson morine, with silk fringe’ were included in the Phillips 1823 Fonthill Abbey catalogue, lots 1171-1173, suggesting that variants of our chair were first used by Beckford before the building of the Tower. There is continuity to Beckford’s affection for ‘black’ seat furniture, which he much favored at the Tower, as a contrast to the oak case furniture.

The present chair is based on a plate published in Thomas Hope's, Household Furniture, London, 1807, pl. 20, nos. 3 & 4, and was perhaps intended as a homage to Beckford’s fellow connoisseur, whom he had once thought might become his son-in-law. The design is closer to the Willes Maddox plate (which shows upholstered arms and gilding) than is the larger version, also with a Beckford provenance, included in Derek Ostergard (ed.), William Beckford 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, New Haven & London, 2002, no. 145. The aforementioned chair, together with its pair, was exhibited at Masterpiece 2019 by James Graham-Stewart.