Armchair, Russian (Tula, Imperial Armouries), steel, with traces of bluing, overlaid with brass and mercury-gilded brass; silvered copper, about 1750

Armchair, steel, with traces of bluing, overlaid with brass and mercury-gilded brass; silvered copper. The back with three separate sections held within frames decorated with engraved foliage. The top arched section containing an openwork scrolled and floriate panel, the centre of which probably once held a coat of arms. Below, at the centre and at the botton, similar panels held within similar frames. Each angled side with scrolled frame and panel, the frames and panels similar to the back. The upright with ball finials, the sides extending past the seat. The x-frame legs adjoining the seat frames, the legs with similar panels and similarly decorated frames. Holes in feet originally held casters. The original seat is missing; the replacement leather seat was reinforced with webbing.

The ironworks at Tula, nearly 200 km south of Moscow, were founded in 1712 as an Imperial armoury to provide Tsar Peter the Great's troops with arms in their battles against Charles XII of Sweden. By the mid-18th century, production had diversified and the smiths at Tula were becoming famous for making luxury domestic objects such as caskets, tables and chairs. These objects were elaborately decorated with gilding and bluing.

Some furniture of this type bears inscriptions and dates, notably a single chair in the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, dated to 1744, and a set of 12 chairs in the Yekaterininsky Palace: 'Made at the Crown Tula Arms Factory 1746'. The V&A chair bears no such inscriptions and was acquired as a seventeenth-century Spanish piece from the Londesborough Sale for £320.5.0. Although it is usually referred to as a 'folding chair', in fact it is not designed as a lightweight and portable item of furniture. The x-frame does not fold up, and although the chair can be dismantled in sections, its metal construction makes it too heavy to lift comfortably. Holes in the feet show that it originally moved about on casters.

A similar chair illustrated in a 19-century watercolour is depicted with casters on its feet (Potsdam: Schloss Charlottenhof, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, inventory no. spsg 5640). This chair is decorated with the monogram 'EP', for Tsarina Elisabetha Petrowna (daughter of Peter the Great, she reigned 1741-1761); two other inscriptions in Russia record it was made by 'Masolow' at Tula in 1744. It arrived in Germany as a diplomatic gift in the 19th century. The Russian Tsar Nicholas I (1825-1855) presented it to Princess Elizabeth of Prussia (1815-1885) and the watercolour records its location next to a writing desk in the Princess's apartments in the Charlottenhof Castle (Potsdam, North-West Germany). The castle is now a Museum, and the chair (inventory no. SPSG IV 124) is in the same location today as it was when painted by an unknown artist in the 1830s.

The Imperial Arms Factory at Tula, near Moscow was established in 1712. From the 1740s it began to produce luxury items, such as furniture, made of steel, blued or burnished, and embellished with gold, or copper and brass. The topmost panel of this folding chair probably held a coat of arms. The seat would have originally held a cushion.

1387-1888