Online Encyclopedia

CHAIR (in. Mid. Eng. chcere, through ...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 802 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

CHAIR (in.
See also:
Mid. Eng. chcere, through O. Fr. chaire or chaiere, from
See also:
Lat. cathedra, later caledra, Gr. xaOi3pa, seat, cf. "
See also:
cathedral"; the
See also:
modern Fr. form chaise, a chair, has been adopted in
See also:
English with a particular meaning as a form of
See also:
carriage; chaire
  in French is still used of a professorial or ecclesiastical " chair," or cathedra), a movable seat, usually with four legs, for a single person, the most varied and familiar article of domestic furniture . The chair is of extreme antiquity, although for many centuries and indeed for thousands of years it was
See also:
art appanage of state and dignity rather than an article of ordinary use . " The chair " is still extensively used as the emblem of authority in the House of
See also:
Commons and in public meetings . It was not, in fact, until the 16th century that it became
See also:
common anywhere . The chest, the bench and the
See also:
stool were until then the ordinary seats of everyday
See also:
life, and the number of chairs which have survived from an earlier date is exceedingly limited; most of such examples are of ecclesiastical or seigneurial origin . Our knowledge of the chairs of remote antiquity is derived almost entirely from v . 26monuments, sculpture and paintings . A few actual examples exist in the
See also:
British Museum, in the
See also:
Egyptian museum at Cairo, and elsewhere . In ancient
See also:
Egypt they appear to have been of
See also:
great richness and splendour . Fashioned of ebony and ivory, or of carved and gilded wood, they were covered with costly stuffs and supported upon representations of the legs of beasts of the chase or the figures of captives . An arm-chair in
See also:
fine preservation found in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings is astonishingly similar, even in small details, to that "
See also:
Empire style which followed
See also:
Napoleon's
See also:
campaign in Egypt . The earliest monuments of Nineveh represent a chair without a back but with tastefully carved legs ending in lions' claws or bulls' hoofs; others are supported by figures in the nature of caryatides or by animals .

The earliest known

form of Greek chair, going back to five or six centuries before Christ, had a back but stood straight up, front and back . On the
See also:
frieze of the Parthenon
See also:
Zeus occupies a square seat with a bar-back and thick turned legs; it is ornamented with winged sphinxes and the feet of beasts . The characteristic
See also:
Roman chairs were of marble, also adorned with sphinxes; the curule chair was originally very similar in form to the
See also:
modern folding chair, but eventually received a good
See also:
deal of ornament . The most famous of the very few chairs which have come down from a remote antiquity is the reputed chair of St Peter in St Peter's at Rome . The wooden portions are much decayed, but it would appear to be
See also:
Byzantine
See also:
work of the 6th century, and to be really an ancient sedia gestatoria . It has ivory carvings representing the labours of Hercules . A few pieces of an earlier oaken chair have been let in; the existing one, Gregorovius says, is of
See also:
acacia wood . The legend that this was the curule chair of the senator Pudens is necessarily apocryphal . It is not, as is popularly supposed, enclosed in Bernini's
See also:
bronze chair, but is kept under triple lock and exhibited only once in a century .
See also:
Byzantium, like
See also:
Greece and Rome, affected the curule form of chair, and in addition to lions' heads and winged figures of Victory and
See also:
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 . The chair of Maximian in the
See also:
cathedral of Ravenna is believed to date from the
See also:
middle of the 6th century . It is of marble, round, with a high back, and is carved in high
See also:
relief with figures of saints and scenes from the Gospels—the
See also:
Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the
See also:
flight into Egypt and the
See also:
baptism of Christ .

The smaller spaces are filled with carvings of animals, birds,

flowers and foliated ornament . Another very ancient seat is the so-called "Chair of Dagobert" in the Louvre . 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 seat, which was probably of leather, has disappeared . Its attribution depends entirely upon the statement of Suger, abbot of St Denis in the 1
See also:
ath century, who added a back and anus . Its age has been much discussed, but Viollet-le-Duc dated it to early Merovingian times, and it may in any case be taken as the
See also:
oldest faldstool in existence . To the same generic type belongs the famous abbots' chair of
See also:
Glastonbury; such chairs might readily be taken to pieces when their owners travelled . The faldisterium in time acquired arms and a back, while retaining its folding shape . The most famous, as well as the most ancient,
See also:
English chair is that made at the end of the 13th century for
See also:
Edward I., in which most subsequent monarchs have been crowned . It is of an architectural type and of oak, and was covered with gilded
See also:
gesso which long since disappeared . Passing from these historic examples we find the chair monopolized by the ruler,
See also:
lay or ecclesiastical, to a comparatively
See also:
late date . As the seat of authority it stood at the head of the lord's table, on his dais, by the side of his bed .

The seigneurial chair, commoner in

France and the
See also:
Netherlands than in England, is a very interesting type, approximating in many respects to the episcopal or abbatial
See also:
throne or stall . It early acquired a very high back and sometimes had a canopy . Arms were in-variable, and the
See also:
lower
See also:
part was closed in with panelled or carved front and sides—the seat, indeed, was often hinged and ra sometimes closed with a key . That we are still said to sit " in an arm-chair and " on " other kinds of chairs is a reminiscence of the time when the lord or seigneur sat " in his chair." These throne-like seats were always architectural in character, and as
See also:
Gothic feeling waned took the distinctive characteristics of Renaissance work . It was owing in great measure to the Renaissance that the chair ceased to be an appanage of state, and became the customary companion of whomsoever could afford to buy it . Once the idea of
See also:
privilege faded the chair speedily came into general use, and almost at once began to reflect the fashions of the
See also:
hour . No piece of furniture has ever been so close an
See also:
index to sumptuary changes . It has varied in
See also:
size, shape and sturdiness with the fas$
See also:
ion not only of
See also:
women's dress but of men's also . Thus the chair which was not, even with its arms purposely suppressed, too ample during the several reigns of some form or other of hoops and farthingale, became monstrous when these protuberances disappeared . Again, the costly laced coats of the
See also:
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 miller to sit with his face to the back, his valuable tails
See also:
hanging unimpeded over the front . The early chair almost invariably had arms, and it was not until towards the close of the 16th century that the smaller form grew common . The majority of the chairs of all countries until the middle of the 17th century were of oak without upholstery, and when it be-came customary to cushion them, leather was sometimes employed; subsequently
See also:
velvet and
See also:
silk were extensively used, and at a later period cheaper and often more durable materials .

Leather was not infrequently used even for the costly and elaborate chairs of the faldstool form—occasionally sheathed in thin plates of silver—which

Venice sent all over
See also:
Europe . To this day, indeed, leather is one of the most frequently employed materials for chair covering . The outstanding characteristic of most chairs until the middle of the 17th century was massiveness and solidity . Being usually made of oak, they were of considerable
See also:
weight, and it was not until the introduction of the handsome Louis XIII. chairs with
See also:
cane backs and seats that either weight or solidity was reduced . Although English furniture derives so extensively from
See also:
foreign and especially French and
See also:
Italian
See also:
models, the earlier forms of English chairs awed but little to exotic influences . This was especially the case down to the end of the Tudor period, after which France began to set her mark upon the British chair . The squat variety, with heavy and sombre back, carved like a piece of panelling, gave place to a taller, more slender, and more elegant form, in which the
See also:
frame-work only was carved, and attempts were made at ornament in new directions . The stretcher especially offered opportunities which were not lost upon the
See also:
cabinet-makers of the Restoration . From a mere uncompromising
See also:
cross-bar intended to strengthen the construction it blossomed, almost suddenly, into an elaborate
See also:
scroll-work or an exceedingly graceful semicircular ornament connecting all four legs, with a vase-shaped knob in the centre . The arms 'and legs of chairs of this period were scrolled, the splats of the back often showing a rich arrangement of spirals and scrolls . 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
See also:
European continent . During he reign of William and Mary 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
See also:
pad feet .

The more ornamental examples had cane seats and

See also:
ill-proportioned cane backs . From these forms was gradually
See also:
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
See also:
foot . Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Adam all aimed at lightening the chair, which, even in the master hands of Chippendale, remained comparatively heavy . The endeavour succeeded, and the modern chair is everywhere comparatively slight . Chippendale and Hepplewhite between them determined what appears to be the final form of the chair,for since their time practically no new type has lasted, and in its main characteristics the chair of the 20th century is the
See also:
direct derivative of that of the later 18th . The 18th century was, indeed, the
See also:
golden age of the chair, especially in France and England, between which there was considerable give and take of ideas . Even Diderot could not refrain from writing of them in his Encyclopedie . The typical Louis Seize chair, oval-backed and ample of seat, with descending arms and round-reeded legs, covered in
See also:
Beauvais or some such gay
See also:
tapestry
See also:
woven with Boucher or Watteau-like scenes, is a very gracious
See also:
object, in which the period reached its high-
See also:
water mark . The Empire brought in squat and squabby shapes, comfortable enough no doubt, but entirely destitute of inspiration . English Empire chairs were often heavier and more sombre than those of French design . Thenceforward the chair in all countries ceased to attract the artist . The art nouveau school has occasionally produced something of not unpleasing simplicity; but more often its efforts have been frankly ugly or even
See also:
grotesque .

There have been practically no novelties, with the exception perhaps of the

See also:
basket-chair and such like, which have been made possible by modern command over material . So much, indeed, is the
See also:
present indebted to the past in this
See also:
matter that even the revolving chair, now so familiar in offices, has a
See also:
pedigree of something like four centuries (see also
See also:
SEDAN-CHAIR) . (J .

End of Article: CHAIR (in. Mid. Eng. chcere, through O. Fr. chaire or chaiere, from Lat. cathedra, later caledra, Gr. xaOi3pa, seat, cf. "cathedral"; the modern Fr. form chaise, a chair, has been adopted in English with a particular meaning as a form of carriage; chaire
[back]
CHAIN (through the O. Fr. citable, chcene, &c., fro...
[next]
CHAISE (the French for " chair," through a transfer...

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.