Occasional Chair
Artist
Maker unknown
(American)
Datec. 1880
MediumAsh, black walnut, original silk and needlework upholstery
DimensionsOverall: 35 1/4 × 25 1/2 × 32 1/2in. (89.5 × 64.8 × 82.6cm)
ClassificationsFURNISHINGS
Credit LineGift of Dr. and Mrs. Ernest C. Shortliffe
Terms
Object number85.3
DescriptionTufted upholstered side chair with central tapestry panel of flowers and foilage running from cretail to seat rail; fringe around seat rail; tassels from corners at top; casters on front legs.On View
Not on viewCollections
Copyright<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>.
Label TextThis type of overstuffed chair may have been made as a single accent chair, but it was more likely to have been sold with a settee and one or more armchairs as part of a "Turkish" parlor suite. Turkish suites were produced by the mid-1870s, but they were never highly popular in the middle-class market perhaps because of their expense, their relative fragility compared with forms made with more substantial wooden frames, and the social ambiguities of their apparent invitation to relax in formal rooms.
This chair is a rare survival that demonstrates the international influence of high-style French upholstery design. The use of silk satin as upholstery fabric seems ridiculously impractical, but it appeared by the early 1840s on French-style furniture in American interiors and resurfaced periodically throughout the nineteenth century as a frank extravagance. A contrasting strip of needlework running from the crest to the seat front appears in French upholstery design by the 1820s. The practice became one of the most beloved conventions of fancy upholstery in America after 1870.
ATD
