. . .Chapter">THE
Brochure Series
OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION. 1900. MAY No. 5. CHIPPENDALE CHAIRS.

It is only within recent times that movable chairs have become common and indispensable. Seats of some kind must have been used from the time when houses were first built, but it is not until the civilization of the last two or three centuries had transformed the old ways of living that we begin to find them in common use. Representations of seats are found in the sculptures and paintings of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and all through the middle ages—many of them elaborate and luxurious—but their use was confined to the noble and wealthy. In church furniture chairs are familiar throughout the middle ages, but they were usually fixed parts of the building. The seats of the common people were probably constructed of rude blocks, or of single planks joined together with little finish or skill.

In England, even so late. . . Read More