The Plum-Coloured Armchair
This item was almost certainly in the drawing room during Dickens's time at Doughty Street. It was given to the House by a member of the Dickens family, and came with a tradition of having been bought by Dickens for his previous home. The style indicates a date that would make this possible. George Cruikshank's sketch of Dickens, believed to have been made at Doughty Street, shows him sitting in what seems to be this chair. The configuration of wall and window, behind and to the right of the sitter, is to be found only in the northwest corner of the drawining room, and nowhere else in Doughty Street. The chair is not placed there now. Rules of contemporary fashion would have made this a most unusual place for such a chair to be kept. The supposition is that Cruikshank had it moved into the window for the light.