This vintage lounge chair might be the strangest piece of Midcentury Modern furniture I've seen.

Produced by Dutch manufacturer De Ster Gelderland in the 1950s or '60s—and probably designed in-house, as there's no famous designer's name attached to the piece—it is an odd mishmash of styles.

First off, the spindle back. During the Midcentury period, this would have been seen (at least in America) as a folksy throwback. Spindle-back chairs were associated with English and Welsh furniture from earlier centuries.

The woven rush seat also speaks of folk craft; no modern upholstered fabrics here.

However, this is offset by the striking padding on the backrest, a circle on a piece otherwise devoid of perfect geometric shapes, made of bouclé (yarn loops). This was a then-modern touch; it was just a few years earlier, in the late '40s, when Eero Saarinen popularized bouclé by using it on his iconic Womb Chair, designed for Florence Knoll.

Then there are the through-tenons. This was a nod not to the Arts & Crafts movement, as an American or Brit might guess, but Scandinavia's own past. Through-tenons were a feature of vernacular Scandinavian furniture dating back to the 16th century—as were spindle backs, hence their inclusion.

These nods to the past aside, the low-slung chair's rakish stance, the angles of the armrest support, and the splay of the short, stubby legs are hallmark Midcentury Modern.

All in all, I've never seen a chair that blended such rustic, vernacular elements with Midcentury Modern design cues in what I feel was a successful way. Perhaps because it's so evocative. I read one description of the design that called it "timeless," and I disagree; this is multiple time periods woven together, in a way that works in my opinion, while it rides right on the line of being a camel (i.e. a horse designed by committee). Wonderful piece and I can't take my eyes off of it.