These chairs were designed in the Louis XVI French-Grecian manner for Thomas Weld's (d.1810) great room of entertainment at Lulworth Castle, Dorset, following his inheritance of the estate in 1775. The room's ceiling, designed by the architect John Tasker (d.1816) of Cavendish Square in the neo-classical manner popularised by Robert & James Adam's Works in Architecture, 1773, was inset with a triumphal painted medallion of Apollo, leader of the Muses of Poetry and artistic inspiration, within a frame incorporating 'arabesque' sphinxes draping the Sun God's Grecian tripod. To correspond with the architecture, the chairs' frames have medallion backs, husk-festooned arm-rests, reeded columnar legs and seat-rail panels and are embellished with festoon-drapery tablets.

The closest parallel to these chairs is a set of eight giltwood chairs with medallion backs, drapery tablets and traces of green and cream paint, from Saltram House, Devon, which was offered in these Rooms, 25 May 1972, lot 81. The Saloon and Velvet Drawing Room at Saltram have pier tables and mirrors designed by Adam and supplied by Joseph Perfetti along with seat-furniture by Thomas Chippendale