Featuring strongly curved U-shaped legs and an elegantly curved back, this chair is lacquered white, and has yellow-gold floral decorations and a braided seat. Cabinetmaker Jean-Joseph Chapuis based his design on contemporary taste. At that time, people preferred antique forms in the Roman style. The chair was therefore inspired by the seats of honor used in ancient Rome, which enjoyed renewed popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries as symbols of power. Having been commissioned to make this chair for the Palace of Laeken in Belgium by Napoleon, Chapuis decided to adopt a new technique. By gluing together several rectangular layers of wood veneer, he was able to bend the material, making his chair far more stable than furniture carved in the traditional manner. Chapuis’s chair is hence one of the most significant furniture designs of the 19th century, because he created one of the earliest pieces of furniture made almost entirely of bent wood. Even though little is known about him, he must therefore be credited as one of the pioneers of the bentwood process – a production method that defined the beginning of modern furniture production.