A pair of late Regency oak and pollarded oak Gothic Revival armchairs, second quarter 19th century, possibly Scottish

With Patrick & Gillian Morley, 1993.

By the Regency and William IV period, the aesthetic revival of medieval and Gothic styles had begun to accumulate considerable momentum, partially fuelled by the dawn of the popular historical novel as pioneered by Walter Scott. While there had been earlier precedents, most famously Sir Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill, the serious antiquarian interest in the Gothic had remained somewhat recherché in the eighteenth century and was generally confined to aristocratic spheres. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, though, the taste for Gothic revival began to encompass a growing middle-class clientele. Prominent Neo-Gothic commissions, such as the work of James Wyatt and later of A. W. N. Pugin for Windsor Castle, also contributed to its increased profile. 

The unusual form and construction of these chairs suggest potentially Scottish origins – for a comparative example, see a similar Gothic Revival chair at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, drawing its decorative motifs from the Robert Burns poem 'Tam O'Shanter' (Royal Collections RCIN 27942), and an additional example of the same form that sold Sotheby's New York, 1 February 1992, lot 271. The crow-stepped top rail echoes Scottish architecture, visually quoting the gabled rooves of the 15th to 17th centuries often called 'corbie steps'.