The fretted fender, with festive lion-paw feet, displays the military achievements of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (d.1852), and is likely to have been executed under the direction of the architect Benjamn Dean Wyatt (d.1850). It almost certainly formed part of the Duke's 1817 refurbishment of his drawing-rooms at Apsley House, London, carried out to display the art collection, which he had acquired following Joseph Bonaparte's defeat at the battle of Vittoria in 1813. The fretted ribbon-guilloche, flanking the fender's central tablet, would have been designed to harmonise with the ceilings that had been executed in 1775 by Robert Adam (d.1792). A companion fender, now at Stratfield Saye, Hampshire is illustrated in J. Lees-Milne, 'Stratfield Saye House', Apollo, July 1976, p. 15, pl. 1