Pair of Hall Chairs
Back and seat panels: Canton (now Guangzhou), China; frame: England
c. 1720-30
- Medium
- Backs and seat panels: lacquered and gilded Chinese softwood; frame: gessoed and gilded beech
- Classification
- Furniture
- Dimensions
- Each: 112.1 × 59.1 × 56.9 cm (44 1/8 × 23 1/4 × 22 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Neville and John Bryan in honor of Ellenor Alcorn
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This chair, part of a set commissioned by British politician Robert Walpole for Houghton Hall in England, combines both Asian and European design elements. The back and seat are crafted from Chinese lacquer and mounted on an English frame of gilded wood. In the early 1700s Europeans could not replicate the distinctive lustrous finish of Asian lacquer, made from layers of dried tree resin, so they relied on imports of the material. The lacquered panels here were likely made in Canton (now Guangzhou) and shipped flat to England, where they were assembled by a furniture maker.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
