B. Harmer's stamp was recently discovered on the suite of magnificent dolphin furniture, probably supplied by Marsh and Tatham, circa 1797-1799, for the Music Room at Powderham Castle, Devon, designed by James Wyatt (d. 1813) for William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay (1768-1835). Of that suite of four bergères and four sofas, a pair of each were sold by the present Lord Courtenay in these Rooms, 5 July 1990, lots 50 and 51. No account of Harmer's has come to light, and he appears to have been an outworking chairmaker employed by the foremost designers and retailers of his period, approximately 1790-1810. The present lot and the Powderham suite significantly raise the level of quality of his known work. Of the four sets recorded in the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, F.H.S., Leeds, 1986, p. 399, only a set of hall chairs at Petworth House, Sussex, have any known provenance. I is more common for chairmakers of this period to stamp only with their initials, ensuring their historical anonymity. It has been suggested that the very small and compact B. HARMER stamp is from the die he would have used to identify his tools.

The Dawson family tradition suggests that these chairs were commissioned for Shepherd's Russell Square house very soon after his marriage in 1802. If this is true, they are contemporary with the very advanced Grecian taste of connoisseurs such as Thomas Hope in his Duchess Street house. Although the Franco-Grecian details there were to become immensely influential after 1807 with the publication of its interiors in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, Hope was in fact furnishing from circa 1800. Thus these chairs, like the Powderham suite, would seem to be of the most advanced taste for their time.