High-back side chair

Tea rooms upped their game in 1890s Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, offering good food and stylish interiors as a backdrop for socializing. Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed adventurous furniture and interiors for the four Glasgow tea rooms owned by Miss Catherine Cranston, including this dramatic black chair topped by an oval with a birdlike cutout. In groupings of six or eight, the chairs created a room within a room.