An elegant and highly ornate pair of Regency era settees, with a richly storied provenance. Recorded as being moved into the White Drawing Room at Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, during wartime rearrangements, following the sumptuous and seminal decoration of Ditchley in the 1930s by its mistress Nancy Lancaster with guidance from Sybil Colefax and Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen in Paris.
The sofas later passed into the collection of renowned decorator Dennis Lennon (1918-1991), who donated them to the Royal Opera House in 1972, to commemorate the tenure and life of its Chief Executive Sir David Webster (1903-1971). They resided there, on public display in the Crush Room, until 2019.
Of archetypal Grecian, scroll-end form, and richly decorated with acanthus leaves and calices, and a fish scale, scallop shell and c-scroll motifs running across the apron, in sensitively dry stripped parcel gilt, and raised on acanthus carved, scrolling legs and raised on foliate blocks. Structurally sound and upholstered to hessian, with bolsters. Shown below in situ at Ditchley Park.

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