Ribbon-scrolled chairs in this French 'picturesque' manner featured in William de la Cour's First Book of Ornament, 1741; The Gentleman's Magazine, 1746 (April) and in Francis Hayman's portraits of the 1740s (D. Fitz-Gerald ,'Gravelot and his influence on English Furniture', Apollo, vol. XV, August 1969, p. 143, fig. 11). Further patterns for such chairs were issued in Matthias Darly's Second Book of Chairs, c. 1751. Its 'initialled' back also relates to patterns for 'antique' cyphers of Roman foliage illustrated in Benjamin Rhodes, 'New Book of Cyphers', 1723; and adopted for chairs designed in the 1750s by the Berkeley Square cabinet-maker William Linnell (d. 1763) (H. Hayward, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, fig. 41). This armchair displays an 'M' cypher back or possibly addorsed 'D's entwining a plinth-supported 'O'. The latter initial is emphasised by the seat being hollowed in the manner adopted in the 1760s by the architect Robert Adam (d. 1792) in his design for a Grecian lyre-backed library chair (Hayward, op. cit., fig. 68). Parlour chairs, whose frames were likewise stretcher-tied on all four sides also appear in the Linnells' designs at this period (Hayward, op. cit., fig. 48). A set of five armchairs, possibly from the same suite, were offered anonymously, Sotheby's London, 14 November 1975, lot 50.