A Gothic Chair
Artist: William Hallett (1707-1781)
after the design by Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
and Richard Bentley (1708-1782)
Title: A Gothic Chair, 1754
Description: Ebonized beechwood

 

The original set of eight chairs that formerly stood in the Great Parlour were designed to echo the Gothic features of the other fittings at Strawberry Hill. The chairs' backs, for example, were adapted from medieval window tracery. During the century that followed, the chairs would influence the fashionable style for Gothic furniture that eclipsed all other forms.