Queen Anne, pious, solid and dull, would certainly have been horrified to learn that her name would pass into popular history because of a shapely leg. The leg in question was not of course her own, but the sinuously curved "cabriole" support which first found its way under English chairs, tables and chests during 1702-1714, the years of her short reign.

In fact, the Queen Anne style was anything but English in its origins and was to be only the first of a whole series of styles which mark the golden age of British furniture, from the beginning of the 18th century to the death of King George IV in 1830.

Before Anne, even the finest English furniture was seldom more than a pale reflection of its more highly-polished Continental progenitors. From Louis XIV's newly-built Versailles came a passion for silvered or gilt furniture, often elaborately carved in the Baroque manner, and when Louis' Francophilic cousins Charles II and James II were replaced by the Dutch William and Mary, London was swept by a Low Country love of walnut and marquetry. Even the 17th century fashion of chairs with caned seats and backs had a foreign origin - caning had arrived with Charles II's Portugese bride, Catherine of Braganza.