This chair, with its vase-centered 'shield' back derived from Messrs. A. Hepplewhite & Co's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, London, 1788, reflects the fashion for the 'Adam' style, admired for its 'chaste decoration' and revived in the later 19th Century by firms such as Gillows of Oxford Street, and publications such as B.T. Batsford, The Architecture, Decoration and Furniture of R. and J. Adam, London, 1881.