Slat-back armchair

Slat-back armchair

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is an example of the earliest known type of turned slat-back chair made in New England. The back consists of three broad, horizontal slats with straight upper edges cut away at the ends. The slats are graduated in height, with the largest at the top. Turned chairs with slat backs were found in both modest and affluent homes, where they provided practical, everyday seating alongside more fashionable and costly forms.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.