Corner chair

Joseph Armitt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the 1740s Philadelphia chair makers, desperate to compete with the low-cost "Boston chairs" being shipped from New England, introduced an elegant local interpretation of the fashionable Queen Anne style, wherein virtually all structural members—crest rails, arm supports, and front and side seat rails—were gracefully curved. This example, a roundabout or corner chair, is notable for its muscular stance and the wrought-iron-like twisting of the arm supports—features associated with the work of local cabinetmaker Joseph Armitt.

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