A SET OF TWELVE REGENCY BLACK AND GILT JAPANNED CHAIRS

A SET OF TWELVE REGENCY BLACK AND GILT JAPANNED CHAIRS, C1805 the padded seats covered in floral woolwork or other fabric, 82cm h, seat rail of one chair indistinctly stamped A...R... (?)Provenance: Lieutenant James Edwin Peake, RM (1779-1809) and by descent in the Peake family, since 1968 at The Hermitage, Kegworth, Leicestershire.Lieutenant James Edwin Peake served on HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. When Captain Charles Adair was killed, Peake despite his wounds assumed command of the detachment of Royal Marines on board Nelson's flagship. He was later one of the pall bearers at Lord Nelson's funeral. By the time of his death in Bermuda he had been promoted Captain.Perhaps understandably, always known in the family as the 'Trafalgar' chairs this long set of fashionable Regency parlour chairs are decorated with japanned designs that almost certainly derive from plates by Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842) which appeared in his Etchings of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, London 1799 and Etchings Representing Fragments of Grecian and Roman Architectural Ornament, London 1806. These were two of the most influential sources of classical ornament in the decorative arts of Regency England. Related designs for penwork were subsequently published by Rudolph Ackermann, for example "Ornaments for Painting on Wood and Fancy Work" which appeared in the Repository of Arts in December 1816.