The chimerical griffins, lion-bodied eagles sacred to the sun-god Apollo, were first introduced as guardian firedog 'chenets' after the French antique manner at the connoisseur Thomas Hope's Duchess Street mansion museum at the beginning of the 19th Century (T. Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1807, pl. LVIII).
These griffins are likely to have been commissioned by William, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam (d. 1833) for the Pillared Hall fireplaces at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, as part of his aggrandisement of the property carried out around 1820.