EARLY 18TH CENTURY

The pattern of leg found on this pair of stools is related to seat furniture associated with the court chair-maker Richard Roberts (d. 1733), who traded at 'The Royal Chair' in Marylebone Street. Richard succeeded his father, Thomas Roberts (d. 1714) as carver and joiner to the Royal Household and supplied a suite of twenty-three chairs and two sofas with related legs to Sir Robert Walpole, later 1st Earl of Orford (d. 1745) for Houghton Hall, Norfolk, eight chairs for the 'Cov'd or Wrought Bedchamber' and the remainder in the 'Cabinett'. With their foliate-headed channelled cabriole legs and distinctive spreading hoof feet, the Houghton chairs and this pair of stools are closely related to those upholstered with Italian cut velvet and supplied circa 1714-15 for Sir William Humphreys, Lord Mayor of London (R. Edwards, The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1964, p. 135, fig. 75). Two pairs of chairs from the Houghton walnut and parcel-gilt suite were sold in the Houghton sale, Christie's, London, 8 December 1994, lots 126 and 127 (see also G. Beard and J. Cross, 'Thomas and Richard Roberts', Apollo, September 1998, pp. 46-48 and G. Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishing in England 1530-1840, London 1997, p. 149 and fig. 167).