The stools have serpentined frames embellished with flower-festooned acanthus in the French fashion adopted by Nicholas Morel, cabinet-maker and upholsterer of Great Marlborough Street when furnishing King George IV's Drawing-Room at Windsor Castle in the 1820s. In 1830 Morel and Seddon were chosen by George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford and 1st Duke of Sutherland (d. 1833) to provide French fashioned furniture for his London mansion. The stools relate to the type of armchair listed in Seddon and Morel's invoice of 1830 to the Duke of Sutherland as being 'in the style of Louis the 14th of fine mahogany highly polished with curved backs and elbows, sweeped rails and legs, moulded & enriched with finely carved foliage, flowers, ... gilt in the best manner...' (J. Yorke, 'The Furnishing of Stafford House by Nicholas Morel, 1828-1830', Furniture History, 1996, p. 62). A related armchair from the Duke's London house, Stafford House, is illustrated in F. Collard, Regency Furniture, Woodbridge, 1987, p. 159.