Chairs - STYLES & DESIGNERS
All links are to Buffalo, NY, pages unless otherwise indicated.

Chairs - CONSTRUCTION

History of Armchairs and Side Chairs [In Egypt] During important religious rituals or official coronations, armchairs would be used instead of side chairs. Considered the highest seat of honor, the armchair was reserved for the pharaoh and was richly decorated. An established hierarchy developed with the evolution of various seating units. Social prominence determined what piece of furniture the Egyptian sat upon. A stool was better than sitting on the floor, but a side chair had a back on it and was much more comfortable. The highest ranking Egyptian would sit in an armchair since this type of chair had the comfort of both back and arm supports. Moreover, the political hierarchy of seat furniture continued into the Greek and Roman periods with authoritatively designed throne chairs. The armchair was also a seat of prominence during the Medieval period. When receiving visitors to the manor, the lord sat in a massive armchair with the lady of the manor seated in a side chair. During banquets, the lord and lady sat side by side while their guests sat on benches, or stools, some of which were brought by the guests themselves. This hierarchy continues today in the formal dining room. Armchairs are placed at each end of the table for the host and hostess, while guests sit in side chairs. - Treena Crochet, Designer's Guide to Furniture Styles," pub. 2004, pp. 13-15

Chairs	Armchair Illustration: Sheraton armchair Colonial Revival/Jacobean Revival style  armchair - McCann House
Chairs	Art Deco style Illustration: Old Editions Book Shop and Café
	Art Nouveau style
Chairs	Arts & Crafts style / Mission Illustration: Hubbard/Roycroft Museum
Chairs	Bannister-back chair A late 17th-century English or American chair with split turned stiles or flat bars for the uprights of the chair back. A more elegant and polished variation of this type of chair back was popular in the Hepplewhite period, Hepplewhite's term to describe the carved and shaped upright bars that are curved to fit the shield of an open shield-back chair or sofa is bar back. Illustration: Dana Tillou Fine Arts Drawings from George Hepplewhite's The Cabinet-Maker and Up-holsterer's Guide (1794)
Chairs	Barcelona chair Illustration: German Pavilion in the 1929 Barcelona Exposition
Chairs	Barrel chair A design by frank Lloyd Wright for the Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo Illustration: Graycliff 800 West Ferry Darwin D. Martin House
Chairs	Bergere (shepherdess) chair Illustration: Hofmobileliendepot Imperial Furniture Collection,Vienna, Austria
Chairs	Boston rocker Illustration: Fillmore House Museum
Chairs	Cane chair Illustration: William and Mary caned-back chair - George Wythe House, Williamsburg, Va.
Chairs	Captain's chair (Windsor chair) Illustration: Independence Hall, Philadelphia
Chairs	Chair-table Illustration:: Fairmount Park Woodford House, Philadelphia
Chairs	Chippendale style Illustration: Side chair - Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Williamsburg, Va
Chairs	Cockfighting chair Also called "straddle chair." Illustration: ScheideMantel House / Roycroft Museum
Chairs	Colonial Revival style Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site
	Commode chair Chair containing a chamber pot Illustration:  Maison Forte de Reignac, Tursac, France
Chairs	Corner chair / Roundabout chair Illustration: Fairmount Park Woodford House, Philadelphia Corner chair - Winterthur Museum Corner chair - Lang Collection
Chairs	Eastlake style Illustration: Sofa and chair (private collection)
Chairs	Empire style Illustration: Livingston- Backus House, Genesee Country Village, & Museum
Chairs	Fancy chair (painted Fancy chair or Sheraton painted Fancy chair) A Sheraton-designed small-scaled, elegant side chair Illustration: Private collection, Buffalo, NY
	Fauteuil A French upholstered armchair with open sides
Chairs	Federal style Illustration: Livingston- Backus House at the Genesee Country Village, & Museum
Chairs	Fiddleback A Queen Anne style, American colonial chair. The back splat is shaped like a violin, fiddle or a vase and the seat is usually made of of rush. The chair may have cabriole or saber legs. A similar chair appears in Louis XV-period furniture. Illustration: American Antique Furniture, Orchard Park, NY
Chairs	Gothic Revival style Illustration: Henry Mooney House
Chairs	Hepplewhite style Illustration: Vase-back chair - Metropolitan Museum of Art
Chairs	Hitchcock chair Illustration: Fillmore House Museum
Chairs	International style Illustration: Barcelona chair, by Mies van der Rohe
Chairs	Klismos Illustration: Baltimore Museum of Art
Chairs	Ladder-back Illustration: William and Mary armchair - Independence Hall, Philadelphia
Chairs	Lincoln rocker Upholstered Grecian style rocker, with curved backs and scrolled arms Prototype is the rocker (photo at left) in which Lincoln sat at Ford's Theatre the night of his assassination (National Park Service site)
Chairs	Mission - See Arts & Crafts Illustration: ScheideMantel House / Roycroft Museum
	Modern
Chairs	Morris style Based on the Arts & Crafts designs of William Morris Illustration: ScheideMantel House / Roycroft Museum
Chairs	Pilgrim Revival style 1630-1690 Illustration: Chair, Seymour H. Knox House / Blessed Sacrament RC Church Parish Office
Chairs	Platform rocking chair Illustration: Hoover House, Amherst Museum
Chairs	Press-back side chair (Colonial Revival) Illustration: Hoover House, Amherst Museum
Chairs	Queen Anne style Illustration: C. 1730 English side chair
Chairs	Renaissance Revival style Illustration: Hoover House, Amherst Museum
Chairs	Rocking chair Illustration: Mission style, Stickley-made - Private collection, Western NY
Chairs	Rococo Revival style 1840-1870 Illustration: John Henry Belter Room on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004
Chairs	Rohlfs, Charles Illustration: Charles Rohlfs House
Chairs	Roundabout chair See corner chair above
Chairs	Roycroft style Illustration: ScheideMantel House / Roycroft Museum
Chairs	Savonarola chair / X-chair / Scissors chair / Dante chair / Luther chair Pron: sav on a ROLL a A type of folding chair with a frame like an X viewed from the front or the side Originated in medieval Italy and spread through Renaissance Europe. The woodwork was nearly always completely covered with silk or velvet, and the seat was made up of loose cushions Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was an Italian Dominican priest and leader of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498. Illustration: Seat of the Mother Superior, Buffalo Religious Art Center Memorial Art Gallery of the U. of Rochester Maison Forte de Reignac, Tursac, France
Chairs	Sgabello hall chair A sgabello is a type of hall chair typical of the Italian Renaissance. The term "sgabello" is taken from the Italian "scanno" meaning stool. These type chairs were historically found in the entrance halls of Italian Palazzos of important aristocratic families as a show of wealth, or as a short resting place. Sgabelli were typically made of walnut and included a variety of carvings and turned elements. The legs could be either two decorated boards with a stretcher for support, or three separate ornamented and carved impost legs. This seat was often placed in hallways, carved with a family's imprese or emblem drawn from its coat-of-arms. Its primary purpose was decorative, therefore the seat was not necessarily comfortable. Carving was the main ornamentation of the Italian Renaissance furniture. The cabinet-makers partially abandoned the oak, which was the common wood of the Gothic period, and began to use walnut, chestnut, and other woods, which were better suited for fine, detailed carving. Illustration: Palazzo Vecchio Museum
Chairs	Shaker style
Chairs	Sheraton, Thomas See also above: Fancy chair
Chairs	Side chair A term used to distinguish the armless chair from the armchair. The side or armless chairs were evolved in the 17tb century when they replaced the stools and benches which were provided for persons other than nobility or the beads offamilies. Illustration: American Antique Furniture, Orchard Park, NY Side chair with rush seat - American Antique Furniture, Orchard Park, NY
Chairs	Slat-back
	Stickley, Gustav style
Chairs	Straddle chair See Cockfighting chair Illustration: ScheideMantel House / Roycroft Museum Maison Forte de Reignac, Tursac, France
	Tete-a-tete S-shaped settee with 2 catercornered seats Also called a converational sofa
Chairs	Victorian style Illustration: Ansley Wilcox House / Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site
Chairs	Wainscot chair Illustration: Saturn Club
Chairs	William & Mary style Illustration: Ansley Wilcox Mansion / Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site .
Chairs	Windsor chair 1730-1830rs were usually painted solid green, red, black, yellow, or white; such paint also protected the wood. Illustration: Windsor "birdcage" side chair in Saturn Club
Chairs	Wing chair AKA wing-back, easy chair, forty-wink chair, saddle-back chair, grandfather chair "A wing chair (also, wing-back chair or wing-back) is an easy chair or club chair with "wings" mounted to the back of the chair, typically, but not always, stretching down to the arm rest. The purpose of the "wings" was to enclose the head or torso areas of the body in order to provide comfortable protection from drafts, and to trap the heat from a fireplace in the area where the person would be sitting. Hence, in historic times these are often used near a fireplace. Currently most examples of wing chairs are fully upholstered with exposed wood legs, but, many of the oldest wing chair examples have an exposed frame with padded cushions at the seat, arm rests, back and sometimes wings.  They were first introduced in England during the 1600s, and the basic design has remained unchanged since. It didn't become popular until the 1720s." - Wikipedia: Wing chair (online May 2018) Illustration: Hosmer's Inn at the Genesee Country Village, & Museum Queen Anne style - Private collection
Chairs	Wright, Frank Lloyd Illustration: Barrel chair designed for Darwin Martin House