These chairs, with their pierced Grecian pelta-shield backs and palm-flower splats radiating from a sunflower medallion, relate to a design for a 'bar-back' sofa, published in all three editions of Messrs. A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788, 1789 and 1794, pl. 9 and pl. 26. A similar armchair, which guilloche-carved frame, is illustrated in Percy Macquoid's The Age of Satinwood, London, 1908, p.189, fig. 171, and a further closely related example is illustrated in C. Claxton Stephens and S. Whittington, The Norman Adams Collection, London, 1983, p.80, pl.11.

A set of twelve closely related chairs were sold anonymously at Sotheby's London, 15 November 1996, lot 73 and a further set of six virtually identical chairs was sold anonymously at Christie's London, 5 November 1992, lot 123.

See illustration