Set of four open ivory armchairs decorated with gilt. Each with rectangular back with three turned baluster spindles between two horizontal splats, with wavy outlines; the arms similar, the armrests terminating in leopards' heads. On four turned tapering legs, with six stretchers, one each at front and back, two at each side.

These chairs were probably acquired by Warren Hastings (1732-1818) as a gift from Mani Begum, widow of Nawab Mir Jafar. This type of furniture, of which the Queen’s 1819 sale catalogues include twenty pieces, was made in Murshidabad from the third quarter of the eighteenth century, in smaller quantities than the production of Vizagapatam, and usually to a specific order. The armchairs may have formed part of a large group of pieces presented to Queen Charlotte in around 1784 by Hastings’s wife Marian.

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004