This group of miniature furniture comprises a centre sofa (circular ottoman), a <i>chaise longue</i> (French term for an elongated chair), two armchairs and two footstools.
They were given to the V&A by the daughter of an upholsterer named Albert Bentley. The museum was keen to accept them because of the difficulty of finding full-sized pieces of this type which had retained their original upholstery. Unlike most full-sized nineteenth-century seats they have never been reupholstered and so preserve their original fashionable crimson upholstery and deep buttoning.
Bentley had been employed by various firms from about 1860 and worked at Buckingham Palace and Marlborough House. He probably made these objects to demonstrate his skill, and they were displayed in a glass case in his London home.