The chairs have Grecian-scrolled backs embossed with paterae in the antique fashion promoted around 1800 by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d. 1842); and relate to a chair pattern issued in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet Dictionary, 1803, pl. 28.
They relate in particular to cane-seated library chairs executed in 1812 by Gillow of London and Lancaster for the Reverend H. Holland Edwards at Pennant, Wales, and described as 'neat mahogany chairs broad scrole top rails & ...double stay rail with 2 carved patteras betwixt.'