High-backed chair

Responsible for the extensions to the Glasgow School of Art in 1896 and then 1910, the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh was commissioned by Miss Catherine Cranston, in 1897, to refurbish a tearoom at 114 Argyle Street, Glasgow.As for the first tearoom made for her, he designed the entire architectural programme and the furniture for the various rooms. This chair was intended for the dining room and for the first time used the high back which became characteristic of Mackintosh's chairs. Made of stained and varnished oak and upholstered with horsehair, the chair was probably one of Mackintosh's favourite models because he used it to furnish his own apartment and entered several examples in the exhibition of the Viennese Secession in Vienna in 1900. Through his friendship and work with Joseph Hoffmann, Mackintosh had a strong influence on the aesthetics of the Wiener Werkstätte.