The form of this chair is derived from earlier nineteenth-century models, its concave back of the type found on Regency library chairs. This has been brought up-to-date with Gothic Revival flourishes, such as the inlaid and incised geometric motifs and chevron bands. Its sturdy but sparing design suggest a date of around 1870, when the heaviness of the full-blown Gothic Revival was becoming lighter, reflecting the influence of designers such as Charles Bevan and Bruce J. Talbert.

It also conforms to the style promoted by arbiters of taste such as Charles Lock Eastlake, whose Hints on Household Taste was first published in 1868. Eastlake advised against the prevailing taste for heavily carved furnishings and illustrated chairs with similar features to this one, in order to ‘show how easily a few incised patterns and turned mouldings may be substituted for [. . .] lumpy carving and ‘shaped’ legs' (1878 edition, p. 165). In the twentieth century the chair was acquired by the pioneering collectors of Victorian fine and decorative arts, Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read.