This serpentine framed easy-chair of beechwood with gilt enrichments, comprising the nature-goddess's scallop-shell cartouches accompanied by Roman filiage, is designed in the early Louis XV manner. This type of comfortagle easy-chair with scrolled ears and 'mattress' seat with down-filled cushion and bolster evolved from the early 18th century wing chair of the bedroom apartments, and first made its appearance in fashionable drawing rooms in the 1750's. Thomas Chippendale, whose Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754, popularised the Lous XV style, noted in its 1763 edition that this type of 'Easy' chair or 'Chaise Longue' with elongated seat and accompanying stool was called a Pêche Mortel by the French. It was also called a 'half-couch' or bergere (spelt both 'Burjair' and 'Birjair' in Messrs. Ince & Mayhew's pattern book, The Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762, pl. LX. It formed part of a suite of seat-furniture, including a settee and eight armchairs (sold Sotheby's, 7 June 1974, lots 63 and 64), and would have been commissioned by Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, who was a Lord of the Bedchamber to King George II and served as his Secretary of State in 1751. It comprised part of his refurbishing of Hornby Castle, Yorkshire in the second half of the 1750's, whilst work was being carried out under the direction of the architect Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (see: G. Worsley, 'Hornby Castle', Country Life, 29 June 1989, pp. 188-194, and fig. 7, which illustrates the easy chair in a photograph taken in 1906).

The Earl was an early patron of the firm of Messsrs. samuel Norman (d. 1768) and James Whittle (d. 1759), cabinet-makers, carvers and gilders of St. Andrews Street, Soho, whose partnership begain in 1755. They were joined for a short time by John Mayhew before he set up his partnership with William Ince in 1759. This is the finest surviving example of the grand mid-eighteenth century easy chair, and it is likely that this chair, which can be attributed to Whittle, may account for the type being published in The Universal System. Illustrated P. Macquoid, 'Hornby Castle Furniture', Country Life Supplement, 27 September 1913.