Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928), was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and became a leading architect and designer of the Glasgow School. In 1916 Mackintosh was commissioned to renovate, extend and furnish the Northampton home of Wenman J. Bassett-Lowke, 78 Derngate. The furniture was made by German craftsmen who were interned at the Knockaloe camp on the Isle of Man during the First World War.

Originally forming part of a suite of hall furniture, the chair, one of four, was painted black in keeping with the colour scheme. The lattice design of its tall back relates to features in the hall and to other items of the hall furniture, particularly a settle and mirrored cabinet. The shape of the chair seat, which tapers sharply towards the back, also finds echoes in the angular motifs Mackintosh employed in the hall’s stained-glass panels and stencilled frieze.

This rigid geometry is relieved by the gently curving profile of the back and by the subtly stepped edges of the top upper rail and lower front apron. The design of the carving, incised and on the apron also pierced, is drawn from East Asian furniture. Mackintosh had used similar motifs, appropriately, in some of his furniture and woodwork designs for the Chinese Room at the Ingram Street Tea Rooms, Glasgow, in 1911.

By the time it was given to the V&A, the original finish of the chair - a black stain with a wax polish over the top - had been overpainted with a light green colour; traces of a separate layer of pinkish-red paint were also visible. This may be linked to the fact that the Bassett-Lowkes moved from Derngate in 1925 and the chair was painted to fit in with the new decorative scheme of New Ways, the house, also in Northampton, designed for them by Mackintosh's contemporary, the German architect Peter Behrens (1868-1940). This chair and its pair (W.8-1970) have subsequently been painted black to return them to their original appearance.