The chairs are executed to a design published by the fashionable London cabinet-makers Mayhew and Ince in their The Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762, pl. III (reproduced here). The pattern shows three 'Hall Chairs in The Gothic Taste, the Ornaments of which, if thought too expensive, may be painted, and have a very good effect'.
Mahogany chairs of this pattern previously in the collection of Sir Geoffrey Codrington, K.C.V.O, D.S.O., Roche Court, Salisbury, Wiltshire, were sold Christie's, New York, 2 February 1980, lot 207 and later, 14 April 1984, lot 137A (illustrated in L. Synge, Mallett Millennium, 1999, p. 106, fig. 104). A further mahogany pair from Hardwicke Grange, Hadnall, Shrewsbury is illustrated in M. Harris and Sons, The English Chair, 1946, p. 148, pl. LXXVI.