A related 'Gothic' fretted parlour chair was invented for the author and antiquarian, Horace Walpole's castellated villa, Strawberry Hill in 1754, and in the same year Thomas Chippendale issued related patterns for 'Chinese' railed chairs in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, pl. XXIII. The 3rd edition of his Director, published in 1762, featured a 'Gothick' style chair with a similar cusped 'rose' and noted that it would be 'proper for a library'. The present chair, with cluster pillars and 'rose'-windowed back, is however closer to the patterns for 'Gothick' dining-room chairs issued by the Haymarket cabinet-maker Robert Manwaring in The Cabinet and Chair-Maker's Real friend and Companion, 1765 (pl. 15). Another of his patterns with a medallion-centred back features in the London Society of Upholders' Genteel Household Furniture in the Present Taste, 1760, pl. 15. The present chair, which is also flowered with a Tudor rose, corresponds to a pair of armchairs sold by Mr. & Mrs. Donald Davies, Charleville, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, Christie's house sale, 23 January 1978, lot 97. The latter were fitted with drop-in seats and enriched with cusped spandrels in the back and arms, but lacked the cusp corners on the toprails. Among related armchairs is a pair with castellated crests, sold by N. Hardy Wallis, in these Rooms, 10 October 1968, lot 25.