This sofa is part of a large suite that was made for Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Houghton was built between 1722 and 1735 for Sir Robert Walpole, England's first prime minister. This suite furnished the second state apartment, which was initially planned as a large bedroom and smaller dressing room. Before the apartment was finished, however, the dressing room became the bedroom, and the bedroom was turned into a cabinet of paintings.
The bedroom houses a bed with colourful embroidered hangings, which may have been made around 1715-20 for an earlier house at Houghton. The green velvet chairs and sofas were probably made in the late 1720s, in a slightly old-fashioned style to suit the bed. The use of burr-walnut veneer (cut from the root parts of the tree), with carved and gilt gesso ornament, is a mark of the very highest-quality chair-making of the period.