These chairs, with their Cantonese lacquer-panelled backs and seats, reflect the George I fashion for 'exotic' furnishings promoted by the East India Trade. Beneath their English japanning, the original 'chevron' lacquer border is clearly visible, and this is shared with a set of twelve hall chairs with identical shaped backs and seats supplied in 1805 for George, Prince of Wales's Marine Pavilion at Brighton (illustrated in H. Clifford Smith, Buckingham Palace, London, 1931, fig. 316). It seems more than probable that the Brighton Pavilion set, now with Regency cluster-bamboo frames, were adapted from George I prototypes with gilt-gesso frames, extremely close in design to the Houghton set, which could have been supplied by James Moore (d.1726), cabinet-maker to King George I

The Brighton Pavilion chairs are visible in Augustus Pugin's drawing of the Corridor at Brighton Pavilion, executed before 1820 (illustrated in J. Morley, The Making of The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, London, 1984, p. 169, fig. 169)

A set of six armorial lacquer chairs with closely related border was supplied to Sir Gregory Page, 1st Bt., a director and later chairman of the East India Company circa 1715 (sold anonymously in these Rooms, 15 November 1990, lot 69), while another set of eight, supplied to Sir William Heathcote, 1st Bt., a rival of Page's in the East India Trade, was sold in these Rooms by the Trustees of the Heathcote Heirlooms, 26 May 1938, lot 118, and again by Mark Heathcoat Amory in these Rooms, 19 June 1980, lot 24

The companion pair from the set of four at Trent Park was sold by the 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley in these Rooms, 29 March 1984, lot 103 and are illustrated in G. Beard and N. Goodison, English Furniture 1500-1840, Oxford, 1987, p. 60, fig. 3