This fine pair of parcel-gilt mahogany settees in the French 'Antique' manner typify the popular taste as promoted by the Prince of Wales, later George IV. In 1820, the year of George's accession to the throne, the 3rd Duke of Northumberland employed Messrs. N. Morel and R. Hughes of Great Marlborough Street to modernizeNorthumberland House, London and furnish it in the fashionable 'French' style. Much of the furniture supplied was made of fine quality mahogany and embellished with parcel-gilding. The Northumberland suite of seat furniture displaying these attributes and relating to the French designs of Charles Percier (d.1838) now furnish the Ante Room at Syon House.

GEOFFREY BENNISON, DECORATOR
Geoffrey Bennison (1921–1984) supplied the fabric for these settees when decorating the apartment of Peter Granville and Hardy William Smith. He ranks among England’s most influential designers, defying conventional notions of style to conjure up magnificent settings for discerning clients who loved his theatrical and romantic sensibility. Regarded as a master of the layered look, he used antique textiles with his own fabrics to achieve a complex mix of scale, pattern, and color; and was thus clearly a source of inspiration for Ann Getty's interiors (see: G. Newberry, Geoffrey Bennison: Master Decorator, Rizzoli, 2015).