Spindle-back armchair

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seventeenth-century chairs of this type were produced by turners. The chair’s components were quickly fashioned on a lathe, easily assembled, and finished with seats woven from rush or another inexpensive fiber. This armchair is one of a minority of seventeenth-century turned chairs with posts ornamented below the seat and it represents a rare occurrence of turnings on both the rear and front legs.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art