Side Chair

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This chair is thought to be from a set of twenty-four oval-back chairs that the Salem merchant Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799) ordered from Philadelphia in 1796. The elliptical shape of the chair back is derived from Neoclassical London design as interpreted in George Hepplewhite's "The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide" (1788). In this instance the ostrich plumes and foliate designs are painted directly on a white ground rather than carved or made from applied composition ornament.

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