The chairs with an undulating headrail centred by a foliate spray, with a pierced rocaille scroll and Gothic - arched splat flanked by stop-fluted uprights with crisply carved foliage. The close-nailed padded seat on square chamfered legs joined by H-stretchers. The moulded arms with scroll detail and with in-swept arm-supports.

English, Circa 1760

Colonel Barham, Hole Park, Rolvenden, Cranbrook, Kent and by descent. Used in the family pew in Rolvenden Church.

The parlour chairs, with their scalloped and Gothic-fretted splats, correspond to a pattern discussed by J Kirk in American Furniture and the British Tradition to 1830, New York, 1982, fig. 932. Another four chairs of this pattern, but with different legs, were in the possession of Elson of London in 1934 (P. Brown, The Noel Terry Collection: Fairfax House, York, 1987, no.56)