A SET OF FOUR EBONISED, PARCEL GILT, AND PAINTED ARMCHAIRSCIRCA 1810 AND LATER, IN THE MANNER OF JOHN GEETwo stamped T S the other G87cm high, 55cm wide, 52cm deepProvenance: Possibly the collection of Oliver Messel at Pelham Place Supplied by Messel to Flaxley AbbeyIllustrated: C. Castle, Oliver Messel: A Biography, London, 1986, p. 215, 'the morning-room'.T. Messel, Oliver Messel: in the theatre of design, New York, 2011, p. 124, 'the morning room'.This set of ebonised and parcel-gilt open armchairs illustrates the fashion in the latter part of the 18th century for japanned (painted) furniture. In 1793, an advertisement of William Peat in the Edinburgh Evening Courant noted that in London 'the Ornamental Parts of Japanned Work... are practised by Japanners only, whereby the chairs produced from that Capital are found to be superior, both in appearance and durability, to any that have hitherto done here'. Thus, cabinet- and chair-makers seemingly outsourced decorative work. This is reinforced by Thomas Sheraton in his The Cabinet Dictionary (1803), who affirmed that chair painting was a specific branch of the decorator's art. In this example, foliate scrolls, floral sprays and grisaille panels depicting putti, possibly inspired by the work of Jacob de Wit (1695-1754), were applied to the ground paint of chairs that were intended for a parlour or drawing room. Such furniture generally harmonised with the colour scheme of the rooms for which it was acquired. Although most painted furniture was finished in the decorator's workshop, some pieces were the work of middle class and aristocratic women, who were described in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen as accomplished for they all 'paint tables, cover screens and knit purses'.