 The chair at right is reminiscent of Grecian-inspired chairs made by Duncan Phyfe in the early nineteenth century. Timorous Beasties (TB), a Scottish design group, created a suite of upholstery fabrics and furniture inspired by John Ruskin's ornithological prints housed at the Sheffield Museum, England. These furnishings debuted at the 'Bird in Hand' exhibit at the Millennium Galleries at the Sheffield Museum. From these exhibition materials, TB created a new line of soft furnishings in 2009 they continue to retail.
Unlike Phyfe's work, these chairs are not meant to be classically-referencing at all. In fact, I think the designers chose them as a reference to the era in which Ruskin lived; it is possible that he had similar chairs at his home Brantwood, in the Lake District, England. The chair's frames are exactly that: framing elements for the expensive, designer upholstery fabrics. The wooden components are finished in white paint, and the boldly printed fabrics contrast with the stark finish. Like decorated porcelain from the mid-nineteenth century, the ornithological prints jump off the beige ground, similar to the tones of the paper on which Ruskin's birds were first printed.
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