BH | Studio Cassis Button-Tufted Dining Chair

The upholstered dining chair came into its own in the nineteenth century, when coiled springs and deep buttoning, tufts pulled tight through the padding and anchored with cloth-covered buttons, made a formal seat comfortable enough for a long dinner, nowhere more elegantly than in the dining rooms of nineteenth-century France. Close-nailing, rows of round-headed upholstery tacks along the edges, is older still, and has framed good chairs since the seventeenth century.

This one has a softly curved back that flares slightly at the shoulders, deep-buttoned across its face and edged at the sides with a line of nailheads, the small domed tacks that frame good upholstery. The seat is thick with foam, so it stays comfortable through a long dinner, and both seat and back are covered in a hard-wearing polyester weave in a choice of colours. It stands on tapered wooden legs in black, each tipped with a cap that keeps it from scuffing the floor as it is pulled in and out.

Set a run of them around a farmhouse table in a country kitchen, with a striped runner and a jug of Queen Anne's lace, or pair them with a glass-topped table in a modern apartment for contrast. The paler shades keep a big table light and easy on the eye, and soften dark floors. One also makes a smart desk chair in a study or a seat at a dressing table. This listing is for one chair.