The Grecian-scrolled chair back relates to a pattern illustrated in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, l807, pl. 59. The brass cresting features on mahogany library chairs supplied to the 1st Earl Lichfield (d. 1854), for Shugborough, Staffordshire by Charles Smith of Lower Grosvenor Street, who also supplied furniture for Harewood House, Yorkshire in the first decade of the 19th Century (J.M. Robinson, Shugborough, London, l989, p. 76, and The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 824 and 825). A closely related pair of ebonised armchairs was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 9 July l993, lot 229.