Armchair c. 1815

This mahogany armchair with satin upholstery was made anonymously at an unknown time. What’s striking about it is how explicitly it borrows from the visual language of ancient Greece. We see this in the lyre motif decorating the back and, most obviously, in the chair’s legs, which have been carved into the shape of animal paws. This aesthetic of neoclassicism, which looked back to the art of antiquity, was prevalent in Europe and the United States from the mid-18th to the 19th centuries. What was the purpose of this revival? It was meant to associate the political and cultural elites who commissioned artworks like this with the democratic values of ancient Greece and the imperial power of ancient Rome. When we study objects like this, we must always remember the social and institutional contexts of their creation. By researching who owned similar objects and what they represented, we can understand the power structures of the past.