This stool relates to a distinguished group of seat-furniture with slightly convex aprons centred by shells of which the best-known is a suite owned by Sir John Ward at Dudley House in Park Lane in the early 20th Century. A pair of stools from that suite that are no longer covered in their original floral needlework was sold from the Samuel Messer Collection, in these Rooms, 5 December 1991, lot 57.
The closest 18th Century pattern for serpentined 'French' seat furniture centred by cartouches was designed by John Mayhew and published in The Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762, pl. LXI.
This stool is en suite with the armchair from the J.S. Sykes Collection illustrated in R.W. Symonds, Masterpieces of English Furniture and Clocks, London, 1940, p. 17, fig. 9.