A Victorian Stained Oak X-Frame Armchair attributed to Marsh, Jones & Cribb after a design by Thomas Hope, Circa 1880

Charles Saunders, London;

Christie's London, 20 November 2008, lot 566;

Where acquired by Aso O. Tavitian

The model is based on a Roman-style curule armchair designed by the antiquarian and connoisseur Thomas Hope for the Breakfast Room of his Duchess Street House in London, published in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London 1807, pl. XX, nos. 3 and 4. A variation of this chair with slightly different decoration also appears in the Aurora & Cephalus Room of the same house, illustrated in plate VII.

The Leeds-based firm of John Marsh and Edward Jones acquired the established London business of John Kendell in 1864 and opened a showroom in Cavendish Square, subsequently entering into partnership with Henry Cribb in 1872. During the 1860s and 70s they were particularly associated with work produced in the Gothic Revival taste fashionable during the High Victorian period.