History of the chair

[1][better source needed] These ancient chairs were built to stand much lower than modern examples, sometimes only 10 inches (25 cm) at the seat.

An example of a 2nd Dynasty depiction of a chair, or perhaps more aptly a throne, is shown in the statuette of Pharaoh Nynetjer (c.2785–2742 BC) in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.

[2][non-primary source needed] In ancient Iraq, the earliest monuments of Nineveh represent a chair without a back but with tastefully carved legs ending in lions' claws or bulls' hoofs.

On the frieze of the Parthenon, Zeus occupies a square seat with a bar-back and thick turned legs; it is ornamented with winged sphinxes and the feet of beasts.

Byzantium, like Greece and Rome, affected the curule form of chair, and in addition to lions’ heads and winged figures of Victory (or Nike) and dolphin-shaped arms used also the lyre-back which has been made familiar by the pseudo-classical revival of the end of the 18th century.

It is of cast bronze, sharpened with the chisel and partially gilt; it is of the curule or faldstool type and supported upon legs terminating in the heads and feet of animals.

The seigneurial chair, more common in France and the Netherlands than in England, is a very interesting type, approximating in many respects to the episcopal or abbatial throne or stall.

[10] In Europe, it was owing in great measure to the Renaissance that the chair ceased to be a mark of high office, and became the customary companion of whoever could afford to buy it.

Again, the costly laced coats of the dandy of the 18th and early 19th centuries were so threatened by the ordinary form of seat that a "conversation chair" was devised, which enabled the buck and the ruffler to sit with his face to the back, his valuable tails hanging unimpeded over the front[non sequitur].

[8] The majority of the chairs of all countries until the middle of the 17th century were of timber (the commonest survival is oak)[11] without upholstery, and when it became customary to cushion them, leather was sometimes employed; subsequently velvet and silk were extensively used, and at a later period cheaper and often more durable materials.

[8] In Abraham Bosse's engraving (illustration, left), a stylish Parisian musical party of about 1630 have pulled their low chairs (called "backstools" in contemporary England) away from the tapestry-hung walls where they were normally lined up.

From a mere uncompromising cross-bar intended to strengthen the construction it blossomed, almost suddenly, into an elaborate scroll-work or an exceedingly graceful semicircular ornament connecting all four legs, with a vase-shaped knob in the centre.

This most decorative of all types appears to have been popularized in England by the cavaliers who had been in exile with Charles II, and had become familiar with it in the north-western parts of the European continent.

During the reign of William III and Mary II these charming forms degenerated into something much stiffer and more rectangular, with a solid, more or less fiddle-shaped splat and a cabriole leg with pad feet.

From these forms was gradually developed the Chippendale chair, with its elaborately interlaced back, its graceful arms and square or cabriole legs, the latter terminating in the claw and ball or the pad foot.

While Ibn Battuta was visiting Mali in 1352, he mentioned the king's interpreter sitting on a chair and beating on an instrument made of reeds.

[12] The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (the first European to visit Malindi) discussed being greeted by a king seated on a bronze chair and wearing an ornate robe trimmed in green satin.

From the late 1720s, fashionable "Louis XV" French chairs were constructed without stretchers, which interfered with the unified flow of curved seatrails into cabriole legs that generally ended in scroll feet.

According to strict guild regulations in force until the Revolution, French chairmaking was the business of the menuisier alone, whose craft was conjoined with that of the upholsterer (huissier), both of whom specialized in seat-furniture-making in Paris.

In the late 1760s in Paris the first Parisian neoclassical chairs were made, even before the accession of Louis XVI, whose name is attached to the first phases of the style.

Straight tapering fluted legs joined by a block at the seat rail and architectural mouldings, characterize the style, in which each element is a discrete entity.

The typical Louis Seize style chair, oval-backed and ample of seat, with descending arms and round-reeded legs, covered in Beauvais or some such gay tapestry woven with Boucher or Watteau-like scenes, is a very gracious object, in which the period reached its high-water mark.

[8] Though some stories attribute its invention to Benjamin Franklin, historians trace the rocking chair's origins to North America during the early 18th century.

The chair of Hetepheres I , the mother of Khufu
Klismos chair , with curved backrest and tapering, outcurved legs, on the stele of Xanthippos, Athens, ca. 430–20 BCE
Depiction of a chair on an Attic red-figured loutrophoros
Seigneurial chairs at a table with tin cutlery, pottery, medieval glass and earthenware in majolica, c. 1465
A Chinese gentleman sitting in a chair while listening to music and watching a dancer, close-up detail in a 12th-century Song dynasty remake of the 10th-century original Night Revels of Han Xizai .
Chinese armchair made from roots. Qing dynasty , Qianlong reign, 18th century
The English side chair (c. 1850) of unknown maker. The chair is made of papier-mâché with inlaid mother of pearl , gilded and painted decoration. Part of the Baltimore Museum of Art collection.
American Armchair (1850–1863) made of Rosewood, rosewood veneer, pine, and chestnut. Attributed to John Henry Belter . Part of the Baltimore Museum of Art collection.