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# Francis Buckland's armchair made from the hospital bed of John Hunter
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/teper-vy-znaete-kak-vygliadit-bastard-taburetki-i-baldakhina/
- Published: 2019-12-12T10:56:14.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:09:53.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Museums, Science, Mores, Humour

Now you know what the bastard offspring of a stool and a four-poster looks like.

This dreadful armchair is possibly one of the most preposterous and uncomfortable pieces of furniture I have ever had occasion to see. And yet so hideous a throne is not merely a monument to bad taste, but also a historical artefact from the world of the eccentric scientists of the nineteenth century. What you see before you is an armchair made out of a bed. Yes, yes, precisely so.

It was common knowledge that the distinguished English surgeon Francis Buckland revered the legacy of the great physician [John Hunter](https://theparnassian.com/vydaiushchiisia-angliiskii-khirurg-dzhon-khanter-byvshii-prototipom-doktora-dulittla-vnes-znachitelnyi-vklad-v-razvitie-meditsiny-no-i-sovershil-neskolko-oshibok-kotorye-vveli-v-zabluzh/?ref=theparnassian.com), and one of his friends decided to present him for his birthday with the bed in which Hunter had lain in hospital. The hospital cot, doubtless wreathed in a magical glow in Buckland's eyes, could of course not be used for its proper purpose, and after a time the scientist was visited by a stroke of genius: to construct from the couch of his idol a commemorative throne. The inverted legs became armrests, the headboard a back, the bed a seat, and, for greater solemnity, a brass plaque was affixed attesting to its unprecedented provenance.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_2182@12-12-2019_13-56-14.jpg)