This suite (lots 100 - 102), together with a related set of caned dressing-stools (Cullen, lot 32), is likely to have been commissioned for Cullen House, Banffshire by Sir Lewis Grant, 5th Earl of Seafield, soon after he succeeded to the estate in 1811, and supplied by a local cabinet-maker/joiner following a design inspired by that of a set of four related caned dressing-stools which follow a design by the firm of Messrs. George and Richard Gillow of London and Lancaster (fl. 1802-12). Its 'folding' tabouret form in the French 'antique' manner, was inspired by a pattern published in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, pl.xii, no. 3. Its low 'back-stool' form relates to a 'hall chair' pattern illustrated by T. Sheraton, The Cabinet Dictionary, 1803, pl. 51.
The same pattern of 'mahogany Grecian dressing stool' was listed in Gillow's account of 1812 for the furnishing of Tatton Park, Cheshire (see: N. Goodison and J. Hardy, Gillows at Tatton Park, Furniture History, 1970, pl.22). The back stools were included as lot 178 and the set of four dressing stools as lot 32 in the Cullen house sale.