Scroll sofa

This sofa has now been reunited with two other scroll sofas from Croome Court in the vestibule at Kenwood. Robert Adam's original design for the three sofas is in Sir John Soane's Museum. The 6th Earl of Coventry commissioned the suite of scroll sofas for his Gallery at Croome Court which Adam was remodelling. They were originally upholstered in fine blue Morocco leather and stood beneath niches containing sculpture. The suite is today recognised as the first truly neo-classical set of furniture designed by Adam. A sculpture by John Cheere representing Mercury from one of the niches in the Gallery at Croome Court was purchased for Kenwood in 1963; it now stands in a niche in the vestibule above a scroll sofa, as originally intended at Croome.' The scroll sofa is in remarkable condition; indeed the delicate carving is better preserved that in the two other Croome Court sofas.