Detail from 1810s French Empire Chair

If we had a spot for this chair at home, it most definitely would not be sitting at the shop. But as it is, the faded purple velvet has served as a background for about 90% of the photos I’ve taken lately.  

Sometimes chairs of this style are mistaken for Victorian Egyptian revival, but pharaoh heads became a motif in France much earlier, just after Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition in 1799.