An armchair with open arms, and a back of a single, shaped panel of wood, the frame in padouk, and in beech that has been grained to look like padouk or rosewood.The chair has cabriole legs, and a drop-in seat covered in watered crimson moreen, now faded to pink. The seat and back hinge forward to transform it into a set of steps with four treads, covered in crimson woollen cloth. The chair has a separate cushion in buttoned crimson leather, the underside repaired in leathercloth. Stamped in several places 'H H' or 'H. HOWSE'. English, 1827-1840

An armchair with open arms, and a back of a single, shaped panel of wood, the frame in padouk and in beech that has been grained to look like rosewood or padouk. The chair has cabriole legs, and a drop-in seat now covered in crimson woollen fabric, now faded to pink, with an additional, loose cushion of buttoned red leather, the underside now repaired in leathercloth. The legs are joined by rectangular-sectioned stretchers on the sides and the back. The back panel is veneered with padouk on the back an front faces, the core of the back that is visible on the sides grained to match, as are all the hidden, structural timbers of beech, throughout the chair. The outer face of the seat rail is veneerd with padouk, set vertically. A top moulding frames the recess for the seat.
The back and seat hinge forwards to transform the piece into a short set of library steps, with four treads, upholstered in crimson woollen cloth. When closed the step mechanism is entirely hidden within the frame of the chair. The chair has a drop-in seat, the frame of beech, D-shaped, upholstered with black and white chevron webbing. It is covered on the top surface with a pinky red watered woollen rep, in a single width, with hand stitching. The chair is fitted also with a loose squab cushion of horsehair covered in red Russia leather (on the top surface) and with red oilcloth on the underside, edged with a 2.5 cm border of red leather, the oilcloth probably added as an early repair. The cushion is D-shaped, with the back part cut in so that the front of the cushion engages round the arms of the chair. It is of box construction, with a piped upper edge, and with 8 tufts that serve to hold the horsehair in place. The cushion is broken away at the front and shows a cushion in holland linen, with extra loose horsehair and cotton wadding on the top, under the outer cover of leather.


Design and mechanism
The chair is of idiosyncratic construction to allow for the metamorphic action that turns it from a chair into a set of steps. All four legs are of cabriole form, with pad feet, the back legs heavily raked and showing a break just above the side stretchers. A lower front seat rail, of rectangular section, is tenoned between the front legs. This supports an upper front seat rail, straight on the front and with a moulded top edge, from which the upper part of the chair hinges forward. It is tenoned into the front legs. The side and back seat rails, which form a continuous curved in plan, are tenoned into the back legs, as on a standard chair. The rails are of beech, cross-veneered on the visible faces with padouk, and stained and grained underneath to imitate this wood or rosewood. The top edges are moulded.
The riser and tread of the lowest step are framed with padouk rails, tenoned vertically into the upper face of each side stretcher. The step itself is framed by similar horizontal rails tenoned into the top of these and into the back of the front legs. The riser and step are faced with boards of padouk. The second and third steps fit over and behind this step when the chair is closed and the rails are tenoned into the back legs and into each other, with the risers and steps also of padouk boards, the back edge of the final (4th) step formed by the rail that also functions as the stretcher between the back legs when the chair is closed.
The arms are curving in plan and are continuous with their supports, which show rounded, wider bases that are attached to the outside of the side seat rails with screws, the heads hidden beneath wooden plugs. The hand rests are tightly rounded in the pattern which has been called 'shepherd's crook' since the 19th century. The seat shows a recessed panel upholstered in dark red wool over black-and-white webbing (5 widths across the seat, 3 set laterally. The back splat, which is vase-shaped, is countersunk into the curved back rail from behind, attached with 3 screws, the heads disguised by wooden plugs. The splat is of beech, thickly faced on the front and back faces with padouk, the edges moulded, these and the underside stained and grained to imitate padouk. The underside of the seat rails are similarly stained and grained. A lever of brass and steel on the underside of the back stretcher release catches to allow the chair to be opened.

Condition
The chair is generally in good condition. There is damage to the front right (PL) foot. The lower section of the back, right (PL) foot shows an added fillet in the joint to tighten the fit - an adjustment probably made at the time of manufacture. The cushion has been repaired as described in the description above.

Bequeathed by John Murray Elger

Bequest of John Murray Elger,, 30 Royal Crescent, Bath. Registered File 55/436

The chair element of this piece is based on a design drawn in the Estimate Sketch Books of Messrs. Gillow & Co., Lancaster in 1827. See Susan Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840 (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008) vol. I, plate 225 and p. 232. This design, with a rounded front to the seat, was made for a number of clients, in different woods, between 1827 and about 1850. There is no record of their ever having made a version that would convert to library steps, for which the design had to be modified, so that the front rail of the chair was flat and could take a hinge. Susan Stuart records that the design was similar to that of a George II chair at Boyton House, Wiltshire (illustrated in Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture (London: Country Life Publishing, 1954), vol. 1, p. 272, fig. 142). The adjacent fig. (143) is also of a highly similar chair, but with a more decorative back, suggesting that it was a common design. There is no recorded parallel of this design having been used for a metamorphic chair.

The chair was exhibited in 1950 at the Bath Assembly Rooms and was illustrated by Edward Pinto in his article on library steps in October 1950 (see refs. below). At that time it was in the possession of Messrs Ayer & Co. of Bath, from whom Mr Elger presumably bought it.

The period 1800-1825 was a great one for ‘patent’ or ‘metamorphic’ furniture This chair, which transforms into a short set of steps for use with bookshelves, is close to a design for a ‘Library Chair’ published in Rudolph Ackermann’s Repository of the Arts in July 1811, which was made by the London firm of Morgan and Saunders, of Catherine Street, Strand. They were well known for their ingenious furniture, including reading chairs with writing surfaces attached and a great variety of travelling beds that could pack down into boxes. This chair, however must date from at least twenty years after the design was first published. The form of the chair, which revives a design of the early 18th century, is based on a design for an armchair created by the firm of Gillows of Lancaster in 1827. It is stamped by its maker ‘H. Howse’ and ‘H.H.’ but that maker has not yet been identified.

W.7:1-3-1955