Cecil Beaton lived in Ashcombe, a property set deep amongst the Wiltshire Downs, for seven years during the 1930s. This chair was made by Beaton for his own bedroom, to complement the circus murals that were painted on a wet Sunday afternoon by his friends, many of whom were starlets and darlings of the 1930s. As Beaton describes in his memoirs, the room was decorated in the most outrageous of colours, with each of his friends responsible for different panels, featuring 'circus performers, baroque emblems, barley-sugar poles and flowered mirrors'. The bed was built by a company called Savages of King's Lynn, Norfolk, which built fairground roundabouts and other rides. The bed was a by all accounts a marvel with Father Neptune taking pride of place at the bed-head. The only disappointment was that 'the bed could not be made to revolve to the accompaniment of steam music'.

Buckle, Richard (Ed.), Self Portrait with Friends, The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton, 1926-1974, London 1974.