A set of twelve giltwood bedroom chairs circa 1835, based on a design by J.C Loudon

the leaf carved bowed top rails over wicker splats and drop-in-seats on flared turned tapering legs (12)

The inventory of the Household Furniture and Effects bequeathed by the will of Sir W.F. Fowle Middleton, Baronet, of July 1860 lists in the Drawing  Room of Shrubland Park `Twelve carved and gilt frame chairs with open backs covered seats in figured yellow', p.41, which seem likely to be the present lot.

The present chairs are based on designs for wicker seated chairs published by J.C Loudon, in The Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture, of 1833. A very similar simulated rosewood example forming part of a set supplied by Banting, France & Co. to the 5th Earl of Bristol for Ickworth, Suffolk is illustrated in Geoffrey Wills, Craft.mes n and Cabinet-makers of Classic English Furniture, 1974, p. 131, pl. 119.