The chairs' Grecian backs, with X-scrolled supports to tablet rails, derives from a French pattern introduced about 1801 by the connoisseur Thomas Hope and illustrated in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807 (pl. XI). A related armchair, lacking paw feet but with lion-headed arms, is illustrated P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev.ed., 1954, vol. I, p.308, fig. 267). A set of five similar chairs, but without the lion-paw feet, was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 25 February 1993, lot 82, and another with lion-mask arm-terminals was sold from the collection of the late G. A. V. Duckworth Esq., Orchardleigh Park, Frome, Somerset, Christie's house sale, 21-22 September 1987, Lot 128.