Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Details

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

An ebonized oak 'Ladder-Back' chair, 1903,
designed for Miss Cranston's Willow Tea Rooms
the high backed chair with thirteen bowed splats, above shaped seat, on square section legs with five turned stretchers, with upholstered drop-in seat numbered 86

Provenance

Herbert Smith Esq

Literature

(1) Billcliffe, pl.1903C&D, Front Saloon; pl.190F,G&I, Back Saloon; pl.1903H, Gallery; contemporary photographs; (9) Howarth, pls.54-56; (14) MacLeod, p.101 & 102, contemporary photographs; (13) Larner, pl.30, example illustrated

Exhibited

Toronto, 1978, no.109; Washington, 1985, no.38

Lot Essay

Designed in 1903. The vast majority of these chairs (one hundred and thirty seven are recorded as being delivered to the Willow Tea Rooms) have a strengthening cross-tie fixed at the top of the rear uprights, which was probably added without Mackintosh's involvement. This is one of the very few surviving examples without this clumsy addition.

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