Chair
- unknown artist
Unknown artist, Chair, 1700s. Paint and gold leaf on gessoed wood with velvet upholstery; 46 × 28 × 28 in. Gift of the Stapleton Foundation of Latin American Colonial Art, made possible by the Renchard family, 1990.287.
This chair, likely a product of a workshop in an Andean center like Bogotá, is an example of the lavish furniture arts of New Granada, the colonial province that included present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and parts of Panama. The velvet unholstery, probably not original, appears to have been made from a liturgical vestment. The claw-and-ball feet suggest an eighteenth-century date. While this ornate, armless variety is often referred to as a “bishop’s chair,” that label is misleading because this type was found in wealthy private residences in Europe and the Americas.
-- Donna Pierce, 2015