Reading chair, English, 1725-1735, said to have belonged to John Gay

Writing chair with narrow back, curved, flat crest rail and trapezoid seat, all upholstered in close-nailed black leather. The crest rail is fitted with swing-out drawers to hold writing equipment; at the centre back of the rail hangs a hinged writing slope with can be propped up with a ratchet support. The seat is sharply indented at the back to accommodate the sitter's legs and has a drawer in the front. It is raised on cabriole forelegs with pad feet joined to the back legs by a curved, paired stretcher.

In the arms of this chair are swivel drawers for writing equipment. The reader would sit facing the back, his legs astride with a book open on the desk. Chairs of this design are sometimes called cock-fighting chairs, but this is not a contemporary term. This type of chair was still manufactured almost a century later, for Thomas Sheraton in The Cabinet Directory (1803) illustrates one on plate 5 and mentions in the text that the chair was intended 'to make the exercise (of reading) easy, and for the convenience of taking down a note or quotation from any subject.

This chair is thought to have been in the possession of the poet John Gay (1685-1732).

W.47:1-1948