A Chinese Export ‘Brighton Pavilion’ bamboo adjustable day bed

A Chinese Export ‘Brighton Pavilion’ bamboo adjustable day bed, possibly Canton, decorated throughout with pierced geometric and foliate motifs, the angle adjustable back rest above a caned rectangular seat flanked by armrests, the base incorporating pull out foot rest, the seat and footrest panels decorated in black penwork with oriental motifs including a central roundel with floral trellis and celestial bats in the corners. Chinese, circa 1815.

This day bed is very similar to a suite of seat furniture present in the Long Gallery of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, see Frances Collard,‘Regency Furniture’, Antique Collectors Club, 1985, page 202.

An identical chair is shown on page 257 plate no 139 in The China Trade by Carl L. Crossman.

Chairs of this pattern have also been in some very important stately home collections. An example sold recently from the collections of the Dukes of Infantado, perhaps most famous to collectors of English furniture as the patrons for Giles Grendey’s most celebrated suite of japanned furniture. The fact that the Dukes would have displayed the japanned pieces side by side with genuine Chinese pieces made nearly a century later is intriguing.

A pair of chairs of this model were also advertised in Country Life on the 19th of June 1980 by Mallett of Bourdon House. The chairs also had exemplary provenance having come from the collection of the Earls of Darnley at Cobham Hall in Kent. Our chair is so similar to one of those in the advert that it is possible that it could be one of this pair but unfortunately it is not possible to prove this at this point.