Coronation Of King Charles III: 700-Year-Old Oak Chair Restored

New Delhi: Traditional processions, a concert at Windsor Castle, street parties, light shows, and community volunteering will mark the coronation of the reigning British monarch, King Charles III on May 6. The highlight of the ceremony will be a 700-year-old gilded chair, which is being restored by a conservator at the coronation venue.

The coveted chair, which will serve as a throne to King Charles at his coronation, has been previously used as a centrepiece at the crownings of several British monarchs, including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Elizabeth II. Westminster Abbey described the chair as “one of the most precious and famous pieces of furniture in the world” in a press release. “It has suffered occasionally over its lifetime, there is graffiti on the back from local schoolboys and visitors carving their names in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a bomb attack in 1914 knocked a small corner off it.”

The restoration work is being undertaken by Abbey’s paintings conservator, Krista Blessley, who is focusing on cleaning the chair and stabilising the gilding. The work involves surface cleaning using sponges and cotton swabs to gently remove ingrained dirt and stabilising gilding layers on the medieval chair and Georgian base. The completed work will be entirely invisible but will ensure the preservation of these historic decorative layers not just for the coronation but for centuries to come.

The chair was made in about 1300 after being commissioned by Edward I to house the ‘Stone of Scone’ – a stone brought from Scotland in 1296, which was the throne for Scottish Kings for hundreds of years.

Made of oak, covered in gold leaf gilding, and decorated with coloured glass, the chair was painted by Walter of Durham — the king’s master painter — who decorated it with patterns of birds, foliage, and a king. “The Chair’s gilding is decorated with intricate tiny dots, known as punchwork, which create exquisite images and patterns. This work is of the highest quality and is unparalleled in surviving medieval art in the British Isles. The base, an 18th-century replacement, is also gilded and has a lion at each corner,” the release added.