The firm of Lenygon & Company, whose premises were at 31 Old Burlington Street, London, was founded in the early 1900's. They had an important clientele of aristocratic and wealthy patrons including the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Pembroke, and W.H. Lever, later Lord Leverhulme, for whom they worked as decorators and suppliers of antique and reproduction furniture. In 1909 Francis Lenygon, the owner of the firm, published The Decoration of Furniture of English Mansions during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Although he was credited with authorship of this volume it is believed to be the work of Margaret Jourdain who became one of the most important and influential writers and historians of English furniture of the first half of the 20th century. Although many of the illustrations are of genuine pieces, it is clear that others are undoubtedly reproductions by Lenygon, this distinction not being made clear in the text.