This sofa is one of a pair, belonging to the large suite commissioned by Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first prime minister, for the State Apartment at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. The house was built between 1722 and 1735, and the State Apartment – comprising a bedroom, dressing room and drawing room – was furnished by about 1732. The centrepiece of this suite, all of which was covered in the same rich green silk velvet, is the great State Bed designed by William Kent (Museum no. W.58-2002). Although Kent was responsible for the design of the bed, the accompanying seat furniture seems to have been entirely the work of the chair-maker Thomas Roberts Junior, who supplied other furniture to Walpole around this time. These pieces are carved naturalistically with lions’ masks and legs, and gilded on a ground made gritty with sand.