CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
| About the artist | Glasgow 1868 – 1928 London |
| Designed by | Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1903 |
| Executed by | Alex Martin, 1903/05 |
| Dimensions | H 104.5 cm, SH 43 cm, W 44.5 cm, D 38 cm/H 41.1 in, SH 16.9 in, W 17.5 in, D 15 in |
| Material | Solid oak, stained dark green-brown, surface waxed, rush wickerwork on seating surface replaced, both chairs are in good overall condition and were restored approx. 25 years ago |
| Provenance | Some of the chairs were auctioned in 1920, the rest were acquired by the Grosvenor Restaurant and sold again in the 1950s. Our pair is from a private collection in London. |
| Literature | R. Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings & Interior Designs, London, 2009, p. 150 –153, ill. 1903.D, 1903.C, p. 157, ill. 1908.8; Die Kunst, Monatshefte für freie und angewandte Kunst, VIII. Jahrgang, XII, Munich, 1905, p. 257–273 |
The chairs for the Willow Tea House are a successful symbiosis of traditional Scottish and avantgarde design. Miss Cranston opened her elegant tea house in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, in November of 1903, or possibly a little earlier. Most of the chairs were ordered in 1903.
Mackintosh had already designed variants of this chair, for instance in 1893 for David Gauld and in 1901 as a bedroom chair for Windyhill. However, the contrast between the all-white interior of the Tea House and the dark-stained chairs most beautifully emphasised the striking lines of what is arguably the most famous and successful chair designed by Mackintosh.
M11/25