Chippendale-design Gainsborough library armchair offered at auction by Andrew Smith and sold for £16,000.
With a provenance to Oxfordshire stately country house Tunsmore Park, it was catalogued as 18th or 19th century and estimated at £2000-3000.
Bidders at the December 11-12 sale thought more highly of it, spotting a period piece c.1755. It sold to the London trade at £16,000.
