A Good Late Regency Period Faux Bamboo Beech Daybed c.1825-30

SOLD
Origin: English
Period: Late Regency
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1825-30
Height: 36” at finals or 19” at seat
Width: 54”
Depth: 29” (all at extremities)

The very handsome and comfortable late Regency beech daybed, in the roomy colonial plantation style, the carcass of deep proportions and good colour, the simulated ring-turned bamboo spindle back now beautifully worn with age, the whole having front ring turned front legs to rear sabres, each leg with the original quality brass castors, the whole newly upholstered in Matthew Williamsons’ ‘Zanskar’ being a composition of theatrical Indian vignettes depicted in multicolour on pure linen, the whole surviving from the first quarter of nineteenth century England.

The daybed is in good overall order and has a fine patination and good overall colour to the beech as a whole; there is some old worm evident to the back lower rail and some to the legs which we have treated well as a precaution and then filled. She proves very stable, comfortable, and the original brass castors move freely. The upholstery is fresh.

The influences on Regency design and taste were legion; from Sheraton’s neoclassicism, Henry Holland’s Anglo-French taste, the Greek revival of Thomas Hope, and the Chinoiserie favoured by the Prince Regent, to an interest in the Gothic, Old English and rustic. The Regency attitude to interior decoration often involved treating each room as a unit with individual furnishings and wall decorations in harmony of theme or colour scheme. Simple materials like beech simulating bamboo, as we see here, were favoured in this later period of Regency design emphasising the gay informality of the new taste rather than the opulent and rich pieces made earlier.

Although there are no stamps present the daybed bears a striking resemblance to that of a Gillows model of an armchair, seen in plate 207 in Susan E Stuart’s book Gillows: of Lancaster and London 1730-1840.

A beautifully colonial flavoured delight.
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