Overview

This high Victorian style upholstered dining chair is from the collection of the Rouse Hill Estate. The NSW homestead, in the Australian Georgian style, was developed between 1813 and 1819 with further developments in c. 1863.

Receipts from cabinet maker Andrew Lenehan (1815-1886) show that the chair was a part of a larger collection of items brought to Australia by Edwin Rouse in 1855.

The Rouse Hill homestead and estate are now managed by Sydney Living Museums and open to the public.

Condition

The overall structural condition was fairly stable with the following concerns:

• Some loose joints
• Detached moulding to the proper right front

The condition of the upholstery was poor:

• Show cover tacked over previous covers and gimp
• No dust cover
• Webbing largely failed
• Springs have all blown their webbing and only loosely supported, causing a sunken appearance
• Some tacks have failed and no longer holding
• Detached and frayed gimping

Treatment

ICS furniture and textile teams carried out treatment including;

• Complete removal of webbing
• Cleaning all surfaces
• New webbing interwoven to mimic the original and secured using original tacks in existing holes
• Stitching springs to new webbing
• Tacking new and original webbing back into original position
• Small areas of decorative gimp were loosely secured with stitching
• Final surface clean