These chairs are serpentined in the George II 'picturesque' manner and richly carved with ribbon scrolls and Roman acanthus fused with reeded and scalloped enrichments, ribbon scrolls and Roman acanthus. They relate to Thomas Chippendale's 'French Chair' patterns and his 'Chinese sopha' pattern (plate XXVI) illustrated in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754 (pl. XIX). They belong to a suite of drawing-room chairs, which has been celebrated since a pair of chairs surfaced in the early 20th Century, in the collection of Mr. A. Beckford Bevan and was illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, New York, vol. II, 1909, p. 95, fig, 93. The same pattern featured in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 189 and also in F. L. Hinckley, A Directory of Queen Anne, Early Georgian and Chippendale Furniture, New York, 1971, p. 165, fig. 248 and L. Synge, Mallett's Great English Furniture, London, 1991, p. 118, fig. 132. Further examples that have appeared at auction include a pair sold by Mrs. Robert Tritton, Godmersham Park, Canterbury, Kent, Christie's house sale, 6-9 June 1983, lot 165 and subsequently sold at Sotheby's New York, 23 October 1998, lot 339 ($63,000). Another was sold in these Rooms, 17 October 1987, lot 105 (G. Beard & J. Goodison, English Furniture 1500-1840, Oxford, 1987, p. 129, fig. 5) and a further pair was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 5 May 1989, lot 54.

Cescinsky described them as follows: 'With fig. 93 the first "Director" years of Chippendale are reached. This chair is one of a pair, of beauiful bronze-coloured mahogany, in perfectly untouched condition, with the exception of the modern-stamped velvet covering, and is probably one of the finest specimens of this type in existence. The carved frilling under the seat rail shows the influence of the early school of Chippendale, although the productions of his workshop, being dictated by the skill of the workmen he employed from time to time, preclude the possibility of fixing a standard of quality for his work at this early period. These two chairs are, however, of such supreme quality that they would be a credit to any maker, be the standard of his work ever so high. From the collector's point of view, also, their value is still further enhanced by the fact that the woodwork is in absolutely original condition, untouched by the hand of the restorer.' (Cescinsky, ibid., pp. 99-100).