BH | Studio Saint-Germain Cross-Back Dining Armchair

Adding arms to the café chair turned a quick perch into a seat for a long lunch. The cross-back bistro chair took shape in late nineteenth-century Europe, when steam-bent wood allowed backs and arms to curve while staying light and strong, and from the cafés of Saint-Germain in Paris to country kitchens across France, the armed version has long been the natural choice for the ends of a table.

This armchair has a chestnut-finished wood frame and a seat of woven rattan. Its open back has two crossed splats under a shaped top rail, its arms bow out and forward in an open curve that supports your elbows through a long meal, and its tapered, splayed legs are braced by arched hoops. The seat sits at a standard dining height, and it arrives fully assembled.

It makes a comfortable desk chair in a home office, with arms for leaning on through a long afternoon, and it is just as good at the head of a kitchen table for breakfast and tea. In a bedroom it becomes a reading chair beside a lamp. Pair it with plain side chairs, a scrubbed oak table and an old brass lamp. This listing is for one armchair.