Between 1826 and 1828, at the height of his influence as Germany's leading architect and designer, Schinkel was commissioned by Prince Karl of Prussia to remodel the prince's Berlin palace. For the reception hall, Schinkel designed a luxurious set of gilded furniture, comprising two sofas and eight armchairs, of which the Museum's example appears to be the unique prototype, made under the architect's supervision. Most of the chair's decorative parts, like the sphinxes and relief ornamentation, are carved in wood following traditional cabinetmaking techniques. Later, molds were taken to duplicate those elements in zinc and composite mass in order to apply them to the five other chairs known today (preserved in Berlin and Copenhagen museums). Such experimental materials reflect Schinkel's passion for exploring new production methods, in keeping with the innovations so characteristic of the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Schinkel based the model on Roman armchairs in the wall paintings of Herculaneum. The Berlin Kupferstichkabinett preserves some of his related working drawings. They include a detailed view of the chair's intended upholstery, re-created here by the Museum's conservation department. Masterfully conceived, this famous and fully documented chair model has rightly been considered among the most accomplished expressions of Schinkel's work and an example par excellence of the German Empire style.