The smaller sketch for the chair on the right is based on a medieval model. Burne-Jones had actual examples made up so that he could draw them from life. He used them as seats for the Knights of the Round Table in his tapestry design 'The Departure of the Knights'. This tapestry was the first of the San Graal (Holy Grail) series. Other designers subsequently designed similar chairs. M. H. Baillie Scott created some in 1898 for the Grand Duke of Hesse, and C. R. Mackintosh designed some for the Ingram Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow in 1901. In this way a design classic grew from a rough idea Burne-Jones noted down on a piece of his own writing paper.
Nos. 218 -220 [i975 Burne-Jones exhibition] belong to a group of sketches for objects to be made by the architect and designer, W A S Benson. Burne-Jones met Benson about 1877. Strikingly good-looking he sat for the head of Pygmalion in the Pygmalion series (no. 137) and for his portrait (1881). When Burne-Jones bought a house in Rottingdean as a country retreat in 1880, Benson carried out the alterations and designed the furniture. Benson also made a pieces of armour needed for such paintings as the Perseus series and the first Briar Rose picture. Lady Burne-Jones wrote in her biography (II, p. 145): 'Sir Coutts Lindsay had a fine collection of old armour from which Edward made drawings, and in addition to this, with the help of Mr Benson he designed many pieces himself, expressly to lift them out of association with any historical time. It was Mr Benson who designed and made the King's crown in the large "Cophetua".' A number of these pieces, including the Cophetua crown, are reproduced in Vallance, op. cit. pp. 28-30