In his lecture 'The Furniture Adventure', delivered in Buenos Aires in October 1929, the architect Le Corbusier explained the thinking behind the three tubular-steel chairs that he had already designed in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand: people are comfortable sitting in a range of different ways to match their actions - talking, reading, eating, writing - and chairs should be flexible accordingly. Of the three chairs, the chaise longue was designed for total, lounging comfort, like the Wild West cowboy with his feet on the table. The 'grand confort' club chair was a variant of the luxurious English club armchair, big enough to move about in and find comfortable positions while reading a book, talking or listening to music. This 'fauteuil à dossier basculant' was a working chair, based on the traditional wooden 'colonial chair', with its leather strap arms.

Perriand had had the three chairs made up by her workmen some time in the winter of 1928-9 and prototypes were made for two houses designed by Le Corbusier's architectural office: for Raoul La Roche, and for Henry and Barbara Church. Different textiles were used in these chairs. The most common textile used for the 'fauteuil à dossier basculant' was blue satin. Five of those delivered to Henry Church for the villa designed by Le Corbusier were covered in blue satin and three in brown satin, while another was covered in parchment. This chair appears to have been one of those nine chairs, though its grey paint is almost certainly not original. These early prototypes were made by a number of manufacturers, including the firms of Duflon, Hour & Le Gac (Duflon was one of Le Corbusier's trusted metalworkers) and Labadie. When the chairs went into manufacture by the German firm Thonet in 1930, they were more usually finished in leather or calf-hide.