A large giltwood armchair featuring a cartouche-shaped splat with carved guilloche border, curvilinear armrest supports and a heavily fluted seat frame with a serpentine front, mounted on naturalistically carved lion’s legs in a cornerstone position. This armchair is part of a set of seat furniture made for the Painted Room at Spencer House, London. The design is exceptionally bold, with lion legs at both back and front. James Stuart, the architect who designed the house and many of its furnishings was one of the first architects in Britain to work in the new Neoclassical style. For the Painted Room he had the walls painted with arabesques and oval panels, imitating the style of decoration found during the archaeological excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii. His design for the seat furniture probably took its inspiration from Greek and Roman thrones in stone. These often showed seats with legs and arms as mythical beasts. This seat furniture is now once more on show at Spencer House. Please follow this link to be directed to the Spencer House website: http://www.spencerhouse.co.uk/ Armchair in carved and gilded limewood, upholstered with modern green silk damask. From a set of seat furniture designed by James Stuart for Spencer House, London. English, 1759.