Designed in the George III antique style of the 1780's, the pattern for a plinth-supported herm leg with hollow-ended and sunk panels was first published in A.Hepplewhite & Co's, Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788, fig. 6, but can already be found on a chair dated 1783 at the Victoria and Albert Museum (see: R.Edwards, History of the English Chair, London, 1951, fig. 101).