These armchairs, with serpentined feet richly carved with Venus-shells emerging from Roman acanthus and terminating in Jupiter's eagle-claws, are designed in the George II 'antique' manner. They correspond to, and possibly originally formed part of a suite of armchairs supplied to John, 2nd Earl Poulett (d. 1764) for Hinton St George, Somerset. They would have formed part of the estate in 1743, at a time when he was consulting Matthew Brettingham (d. 1769), executant architect of Holkham Hall, Norfolk (illustrated in situ in the 1930s in the Grand Saloon in C. G. Winn, The Pouletts of Hinton St. George, 1976. Nine of the armchairs were sold by Earl Poulett, Sotheby's London, 1 November 1968, lot 69. Four armchairs of closely related pattern were sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 2 December 1948, lots 138 and 139 and another pair was sold from the collection of the late G. A. V. Duckworth, Esq., Orchardleigh Park, Somerset, Christie's house sale, 21 September 1987, lot 419. The four chairs, sold in these Rooms in 1948, were richly upholstered in the 18th Century manner with tufted back and seats and double lines of brass nails paling out the arms and seat-rails.