A wing chair (also, wing-back chair, wing-back or armchair) is an easy chair or club chair with "wings" attached to the back of the chair, typically, but not always, stretching down to the arm rest. The purpose of the "wings" was to shield the occupant of the chair from drafts and to trap the heat from a fireplace in the area where the person would be sitting. Hence, in the past, these were often used near a fireplace. Currently, most examples of wing chairs are fully upholstered with exposed wood legs, but many of the oldest examples of wing chairs have an exposed frame with padded cushions at the seat, armrests, back, and sometimes wings.
They were first introduced in England during the 1600s, and the basic design has remained unchanged. [1] They did not become popular until the 1720s. [2]
Though there are many types of wing chairs, there are two standard wing styles - the flat wing and the scroll wing. There are also bat wings and butterfly wings, among other types. The length, depth, vertical position, and shape of the wings may vary from chair to chair.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. It is the largest art museum in the Americas and the fourth-largest in the world. With 5.36 million visitors in 2023, it is the most-visited museum in the United States and the fourth-most visited art museum in the world.
Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating (tables), storing items, working, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture can be a product of design and can be considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. It can be made from a vast multitude of materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflects the local culture.
An altarpiece is an work of art in painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of Baroque painting.
Lama, Lamma, or Lamassu is an Assyrian protective deity.
A footstool is a piece of furniture or a support used to elevate the feet. There are two main types of footstool, which can be loosely categorized into those designed for comfort and those designed for function.
A curule seat is a design of a (usually) foldable and transportable chair noted for its uses in Ancient Rome and Europe through to the 20th century. Its status in early Rome as a symbol of political or military power carried over to other civilizations, as it was also used in this regard by kings in Europe, Napoleon, and others.
Opus Anglicanum or English work is fine needlework of Medieval England done for ecclesiastical or secular use on clothing, hangings or other textiles, often using gold and silver threads on rich velvet or linen grounds. Such English embroidery was in great demand across Europe, particularly from the late 12th to mid-14th centuries and was a luxury product often used for diplomatic gifts.
Joos van Cleve was a leading painter active in Antwerp from his arrival there around 1511 until his death in 1540 or 1541. Within Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, he combines the traditional techniques of Early Netherlandish painting with influences of more contemporary Renaissance painting styles.
Home Place, also called Voewood, is an Arts and Crafts style house in High Kelling, near Holt, Norfolk, England, designed (1903–5) by Edward Schroeder Prior. It is a Grade II* listed building. The gardens, also designed by Prior, are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
The fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a fire grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling. Mantelpiece is now the general term for the jambs, mantel shelf, and external accessories of a fireplace. For many centuries, the chimneypiece was the most ornamental and most artistic feature of a room, but as fireplaces have become smaller, and modern methods of heating have been introduced, its artistic as well as its practical significance has lessened.
The Château d'Écouen is an historic château in the commune of Écouen, some 20 km north of Paris, France, and a notable example of French Renaissance architecture. Since 1975, it has housed the collections of the Musée national de la Renaissance.
The art collection of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, remains very largely that which the original owner intended the house to display; the house was designed around the art collection acquired by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, during his Grand Tour of Italy during 1712–18. To complete the scheme it was necessary to send Matthew Brettingham the younger to Rome between 1747 and 1754 to purchase further works of art.
Wentworth–Coolidge Mansion is a 40-room clapboard house which was built as the home, offices and working farm of colonial Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire. It is located on the water at 375 Little Harbor Road, about two miles southeast of the center of Portsmouth. It is one of the few royal governors' residences to survive almost unchanged. The site is a New Hampshire state park, declared a National Historic Landmark in 1968. Today, the New Hampshire Bureau of Historic Sites manages the site with the assistance of the Wentworth-Coolidge Commission, a group of volunteer civic and business leaders appointed by the Governor.
The Old Faithful Historic District in Yellowstone National Park comprises the built-up portion of the Upper Geyser Basin surrounding the Old Faithful Inn and Old Faithful Geyser. It includes the Old Faithful Inn, designed by Robert Reamer and is itself a National Historic Landmark, the upper and lower Hamilton's Stores, the Old Faithful Lodge, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and a variety of supporting buildings. The Old Faithful Historic District itself lies on the 140-mile Grand Loop Road Historic District.
Ilkley Manor House, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England, is a local heritage museum, art gallery, and live venue, and was established in the present building in 1961 to preserve local archaeological artefacts after the spa town expanded and much Roman material was lost. It was managed by Bradford Council Museums and Galleries department but had to be closed in 2013 owing to lack of funds. In order to keep the building open to the public, the Ilkley Manor House Trust was formed, and in April 2018, Bradford Council transferred the Manor House and three adjacent cottages to the Trust as a community asset transfer.
The chalcolithic Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, in Eastern Europe, left behind thousands of settlement ruins, c. 6000 to 3500 BC, containing a wealth of archaeological artifacts attesting to their cultural and technological characteristics.
The Mikhailovsky Palace is a grand ducal palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is located on Arts Square and is an example of Empire style neoclassicism. The palace currently houses the main building of the Russian Museum and displays its collections of early, folk, eighteenth, and nineteenth century art.
The 1910 Deperdussin monoplane was the first aircraft to be built in significant quantities by Aéroplanes Deperdussin. The type was produced in a number of variants which were flown successfully in air races and gained several records during 1911, and was used by the Australian Central Flying School at Point Cook, Victoria. Several have survived, including an airworthy example in the Shuttleworth Collection in England.
Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion is a small south Netherlandish prayer nut, carved in fine-grained boxwood, dated c 1500–10. It is now in the collection of The Cloisters, New York. Originally the bead would have been part of a complete rosary set, and its size suggests its use as an Ave bead, where the supplicant would recite the "Hail Mary". Objects of this type were in great demand in the early sixteenth century. Apart from use in private veneration, they could be worn as necklaces or hung from belts as fashionable accessories. The exceptional craftsmanship of this example indicates that it was intended for a member of the high nobility. J. P. Morgan donated the bead to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1917.
The Pratt Ivories, also known as the AcemhöyükIvories, are a collection of furniture attachments produced in Anatolia in the early second millennium B.C. They were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1932 and 1937 by Mr. and Mrs. George D. Pratt. The group represents one of the most important assemblages of furniture fittings from the ancient Near East. In particular, a preserved set of four sphinxes, three lion legs, a falcon, and two recumbent gazelles, comprise the earliest and most complete evidence for a luxury chair or throne from the ancient world. Many of the other pieces in the group likely belonged to a number of small decorative objects.