Patterns for 'Roman' chairs, with arched crest and scroll arm and leg, featured in the suppliment to The London Chairmakers' and Carvers' Book of Prices, 1802 (pl. 1, figs. 1,3 and 5). Another Etruscan-black chair of this pattern was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 21 September 1995, lot 107.
This pair of chairs is likely to have been commissioned for Stradsett Hall, Norfolk as part of the aggrandisement of the Elizabethan house carried out by Thomas Philip Bagge (d. 1823).