Comprising two armchairs and ten side chairs, each caned back with a top rail with central tablet depicting a painted scene representing the arts, sciences and seasons, flanked by turned tapering columnar uprights decorated with trailing polychrome flowers surmounted by urn finials, the bowed seat on similarly decorated turned tapering legs, the seats upholstered with striped dark green, yellow and white striped silk squab cushions, eleven bearing Queen Victoria's inventory brand of a crowned 'VR', one back rail replaced, two painted tablets signed 'HM', refreshments to the decoration
The armchairs: 34 in. (86.5 cm.) high; 22 in. (56 cm wide); 22 in. (56 cm.) deep
The side chairs: 34 in. (86.5 cm.) high; 20¹⁄₂. in. (52 cm wide); 20 in. (51 cm.) deep

The Collection of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (1837-1901).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 10 November 1995, lot 170.

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Lot Essay

This elegantly proportioned set of dining-chairs with their whimsical and fanciful painted decoration bear the inventory brand ‘VR’ beneath a crown, indicating that they formed part of the Royal Collection during the reign of Queen Victoria and formed part of the interior of one of the Royal residences.

The French-fashioned cabriolet chairs with medallioned seats and caned tablet backs relate to a Drawing Room Chair pattern in Thomas Sheraton's, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1793. Intriguingly, although the chairs themselves date from the early 19^thcentury, the painted decoration was added circa 1850, presumably for the Queen herself. Although it is not possible to attribute the painted decoration, two of the painted toprails bear the signature 'HM' offering a tantalising clue as to the identity of the artist.