Turned chair

Some chairs have so many spindles that their backs and sides form an almost solid latticework, akin to the Arabic lattice windows or Mashrabiya.

Eventually their techniques influenced the celebratedly simple and elegant style of the Shaker chair, still largely made by turning.

These gave rise to the backstool, a backless stool with one leg extended upwards and later widened by a flat pad.

In early colonial New England, large wooden turned armchairs – which came to be called "Great Chairs" – are thought to have been used by leading officials as symbols of authority.

In the 19th century, eminent names were attached to individual chairs, and their stylistic variants, which had been passed down through some of the "Mayflower families".