Stool in Egyptian style, called the Thebes Stool

after 1884

This stool, designed in 1884 by Leonard Wyburd, director of Liberty’s Furnishing and Decoration Studio, and produced by the firm of William Birch or B. North & Son, was a line sold by Liberty & Co. until 1919. It draws directly on a seat dating from the reign of Amenhotep III of Egypt (c. 1400−1350 BCE) in the Eighteenth Dynasty, which was purchased by the British Museum in 1835 at the sale of the collection of Henry Salt, a former diplomat in Cairo who organised the excavations of Thebes and Abu Simbel. It reflects the fascination felt for Egypt ever since Napoleon’s campaigns, as attested also in 1854 by the Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace relocated to Sydenham Hill.