An armchair (one of a pair) of beechwood, stained to imitate mahogany. The square back and seat with curved front rail are upholstered in a modern dark blue artificial silk.

Armchair or fauteuil in beechwood stained to imitate mahogany or oak, with carved 'mounts', the upholstery in dark blue silk satin (not original).

The chair has square-sectioned raked back legs and turned tapering front legs, these carved with collars of upright leaf. The frame of the square back is square-sectioned, the front face of each element with a recessed panel with carved rosettes. The top rail is in the form of a shallow triangular pediment, the recessed panel of this carved with horizontal husks beneath an anthemion finial. The arm supports are vertical continuations of the front legs, turned, with reverse taper, and carved with upright leaves. The arms show tight, round scrolls above the supports, the sides of these carved with a rosette and an anthemion. Behind the long, narrow arm-pads, the arms scroll up to the junction with the backs, the top surface shallowly carved with leafage, with a shell-like finial. The seat rails show recessed panels, the sides carved with rosettes, the bowed fronts with horizontal leaf 'mounts', the squares above each front leg with rosettes. Viewed from the back the joint between the back upright and the pedimented rail is mitred on the inner edge. The lower edges of the rails are lightly chamfered.

The upholstery is in modern blue silk satin outlined with blue and white gimp. The back is lined with blue silk satin. The à tablette hard edge on the back and the seat has been blurred by several bouts of re-upholstery. The webbing (approx. 15 cms wide) is close-set and may be original.

The Bettine, Lady Abingdon Collection. Bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole

One of a large number of pieces of French furniture, ceramics, metalwork, books and other decorative arts, from the Empire period and earlier, acquired in Paris by Charles Stuart (from 1828 1st Lord Stuart de Rothesay) (1779--1845). The Empire furnishings were probably purchased during his first period as ambassador to Paris (1815--1824), the earlier furnishings during his second embassy (1828--30). The Empire furnishings may have been intended for a London house. He acquired 4 Carlton House Terrace, where improvements were carried out from 1827 to 1831, and he moved in in 1834. Older furnishings were more probably purchased for his country house, Highcliffe Castle, Hampshire (now Dorset), which was remodelled and enlarged in the most ambitious Gothic style from 1830 to 1834, with some work continuing throughout the 1830s. In 1841 the house in Carlton House Terrace was let, and the family moved their London residence to Whitehall Yard. It was possibly at that time -- or in 1845, the date of Lord Stuart de Rothesay's death -- that the Empire furnishings were moved to Highcliffe.
Lord Stuart de Rothesay's collections were inherited in 1867 by his younger daughter Louisa, Lady Waterford (1818--1891), who maintained Highcliffe Castle. She left the house and its collections to her distant cousin Major-General Edward Stuart Wortley (1857--1934). When his younger daughter Elizabeth ('Bettine') married Montagu Bertie, 8th Earl of Abingdon, in 1928, he bought the castle and its contents from his father-in-law. The Abingdons sold Highcliffe and most of its contents in 1949, but retained the present group of furniture and some other pieces. After her husband's death in 1963, Lady Abingdon lived for much of the time with her close friends Mr and Mrs Tahu Hole, to whom she bequeathed all her personal possessions on her death in 1978. Tahu Hole died in 1985, and a year later his widow Joyce approached the Museum and offered the collection as a bequest. She died in December 1986, and in accordance with her will the Museum chose those items that it wished to add to its collections. Other items from the collection were sold to benefit the Museum, and the proceeds added to the funds bequeathed.


In various generations of reupholstery this chair and its pair have lost their sharp outline of seat and back, originally upholstered à tablette, with hard edges outlined with cord or braid. They do appear, however, to retain their original webbing, close-set in the French fashion; and it is possible that the original sharp structure survives under later wadding. The surface was cleaned and re-stained prior to 1987.

This armchair and its pair, in the French Empire style, form part of a group of furniture purchased in Paris by Lord Stuart de Rothesay, who served twice as British ambassador there (1815-1824 and 1828-1830). Stuart de Rothesay acquired a large quantity of French Empire furniture, which he later brought back to Britain to use both in his London home and Highcliffe Castle, the house in Dorset that he built in 1830-1834.

W.8A-1987