The hall chairs, displaying the Hyde family crest, are likely to have been commissioned by John Hyde for his Palladian mansion Castle Hyde, co. Cork, which had been designed by the elder Abraham Hargrave of Cork around 1801. A pattern for a compass-seated chair with hermed feet features in the 1794 pattern-book of Gillows of London and Lancaster (L.Boynton (ed.), Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig.246). However with their stretcher-tied legs and medallioned backs they also relate to hall chairs supplied in 1790 by Messrs. Seddon, Sons and Shackleton and sold by R.B.W. Clarke Esq., Bearne's Auction House, 14 October 1992, lot 31. This celebrated firm of Aldersgate Street, London may have also supplied the present lot.