"A new and very elegant fashion has arisen within these few years, of finishing them with painted or japanned work, which gives a rich and splendid appearance to the minutest parts of Ornaments," wrote George Hepplewhite in referring to plates 6,7 and 8 of the first edition of The Cabinet-Maker and Upholster's Guide, printed in London, 1788. Based on plate 8, figure S, these chairs are among the most beautiful American painted chairs, Hepplewhite continued that, "by assorting the prevailing color to the furniture and light of the room, affords opportunity, by the variety of grounds which may be introduced, to make the whole accord in harmony, with pleasing and striking effect to the eye."

In pursuing the most up to date stlyes in 1796, Elias Hasket Derby, a wealthy merchant and ship owner in Salem, Massachusetts ordered twenty-four oval-back chairs from Joseph Anthony and Company, Philadelphia, as part of the furnishings he commissioned his magnificent new home. These chairs are associated with Derby's order. Other similar black painted chairs are also associated with the Derby family, possibly ordered by Elias' brother John. Both the white painted and black painted versions are excellent examples of a highly accomplished decorator, who was well aware of the new fashion in England.

For similar white painted chairs made for the Derby mansion, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art see Fales, American Painted Furniture, 1660-1880 (New York, 1972) pp. 92-93. Hipkiss, Eighteenth-Century American Art, The M. and M. Karolik Collection (Boston, 1941) p. 166, figs. 104-105; two chairs at Winterthur, illustrated and discussed in Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York, 1966) figs. 17-18; Two chairs from this set sold in theses rooms, January 21, 1984 lot 321, and one is illustrated in Flanigan, American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, (New York, 1986) p. 110-111, fig. 36.