This distinctive chair exhibits all the hallmarks of French construction and taste, but features a uniquely English chair rail. The fine anthemia carving along the base of the seat is a distinctly English feature, which suggests either the influence of a carver from across the Channel, or an endeavor to market the piece to an English audience.

Mrs. Ronald (Marietta Peabody) Tree (1917-1991) was descended from the New England Peabodys, an old and pious family. Mrs. Tree’s grandfather founded Groton school, the American answer to Eton, and her brother Endicott Howard Peabody served for a time as the governor of Massachusetts. Herself a dedicated public servant, Mrs. Tree represented the U.S. in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, appointed under the John F. Kennedy administration and continued to work with the UN on human rights issues for many years.

After the end of her first marriage to lawyer and politician Desmond FitzGerald (1910-1967) in 1947, Marietta married Anglo-American MP Ronald Tree (1897-1976). For a brief time the couple lived in Tree’s Oxforshire home, Ditchley Park. However, they soon constructed their own Palladian estate in Barbados called Heron Bay, filling it with many items from Ditchley, which they soon-thereafter sold. The Trees also maintained a townhouse in Manhattan, further outfitted with furniture and art from Ditchley Park, and which was known by close friends as ‘Little Ditchley’.