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Pugin pioneered the Victorian Gothic Revival style. He believed it was a form of moral honesty to use methods of construction that were appropriate to the material, and that the construction should be clearly visible. In 1850 he used a pair of contrasting sketches to emphasise this point. One sketch showed the tusked tenon joint used in this chair, labelled ‘the old joint.’ By contrast, he labelled a sketch of a glue pot ‘the modern joint.’ The chair is painted with Pugin’s crest. It is one of a set of four that Pugin designed for use at his own home, The Grange in Ramsgate.