American chairs

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Chair Styles: Take a Seat … or Two … or Three …

This enormous ca. 1755 armchair is ambitious in both scale and design. Its bold contours are enabled by the dense mahogany that came from the colonized West Indies. Distinct in its beautiful grain and light-reflecting sheen, mahogany became eighteenth-century Britain’s “national wood.” Thomas Chippendale’s design for this “French Chair,” published in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754), specified that it “must be covered with Tapestry, or other sort of Needlework.” Here, the needlework depicts a scene of the Annunciation, the feast day when contracts for trades and craftspeople were renegotiated. photo: The Met

by Judy Gonyeau, managing editor Everyone has their favorite chair, whether it is an ergonomic masterpiece or an overstuffed recliner. Even our pets tend to own their spots when allowed on the furniture. Across the centuries of our ever-changing country,…

Nick Boschetto
February 17, 2023