From all the furniture pieces, the chair may be of most importance. While the majority of other pieces (save for the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair is used here in the common sense, from stool to throne to complex chairs for example a bench and sofa, which might be considered as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not overtly labeled.

The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not merely a physical support and/or aesthetic piece of art; it historically was a symbol of social placement. At the Medieval royal courts there were important connotations between having a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to cope with a stool. In the recent century, a director’s and/or manager’s chair has been an identifier of superior dignity, as well as in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on a high-set floor.

As a furniture form, the chair is utilised for a wealth of different forms. There are chairs structured to attend to man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since the olden days there were chairs for birthing (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs for ending life (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. There are chairs that can be folded for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.

Our contemporary lifestyle has demanded special chairs for automobiles and aircraft. All these chair shapes has been perfected to suit to evolving human uses. Because of its unique association with man, the chair exists to its full purpose only when being used. Though it does not make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers whether there are items inside or not, a chair is really seen and fairly regarded with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter require the other. Thus the individual areas of a chair have been named like the parts of our human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the fundamental job of a chair is to support a body, its worth is tested principally for how suitably it fulfills this practical function. In the creation of the chair, the designer is limited in particular static rules and principal measurements. In these limitations, however, the chair creator has awesome freedom.

The history of the chair lasted an epoch of several thousand years. There existed societies that have created iconic chair types, as expressive of the foremost object in the spheres of technique and aesthetics. Among those peoples, particular mention must be made of ancient Egypt and Greece; China; Spain and The Netherlands in the 17th century; England in the 18th century; and France in the 18th century during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the upshot of skilled scheme, were found from tomb findings. One of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair would have four legs crafted not unlike those of an animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported by vertical stretchers. From this a stable triangular design was created. There was to all appearances no noteworthy difference in the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary non-royals. The simple difference lies in the intricacy of ornamentation, in the choice of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was manufactured as an easily stored seat for soldiers. As a camp stool this kind persisted for much later points in time. But the stool then was made as the character of a ceremonial seat, its technical job as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can from today’s evidence be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are made in the shape of folding stools but aren’t able to be folded because the seats are formed from wood. The simple build of the folding stool, being of two frames that turn on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric held between them, can be seen but somewhat later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best recognised of this kind is the folding stool, made from ashwood, found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The archetypal Greek chair, the klismos, is found not in any ancient object still existing but as seen from a wealth of pictorial items. The better recognised is the klismos posited on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location near Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of these legs are shown. These curving legs were thought to be executed from bent wood and were probably had extreme pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore extremely solid and were visibly signified.

The Romans emulated the Greek designs; quite a few statues of seated Romans offer evidence of a more heavyset and in appearance somewhat more crudely constructed klismos. Both types, light and heavy, were brought back in the Classicist time. The klismos style can be evidenced in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some particular brands of profound originality in Denmark and Sweden during 1800.

China
The history of the chair in China isn’t able to be tracked as long as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an undamaged collection of images and works of art has been kept, detailing the inside and exteriors of Chinese households and the furniture. Another preservation since the 16th century are some chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that display an intriguing familiarity to styles of past chairs.

Like in Egypt, there were two standard chair designs in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair has been constructed both with or without arms however always having its square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to hold up the back. In one image, it must be said, the stiles had been delicately curved by the arms to suit the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of its back). Together, the three sections are mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Though the design of the Chinese back splat exercised an introduction for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden members that merely to a limited limit embolden corner joints (and then were loose into the bargain) are a feature solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which closes over the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—acknowledging perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and might have had a plaited seat. These chairs needed the sitter to remain stiff and upright; for when too much weight is forced on the back, the chair has a habit of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this epoch armchairs most likely were reserved for senior persons in the family, for they were held in great esteem.

The Chinese folding stool is thought to have taken to China from the West. It is not dissimilar very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a variation in that the top rail is intricately held to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is generally seen with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resulting effect of these furniture forms is stylized. The construction and decoration aspects are combined in a style that is both naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an outcome of the manner that the individual parts do not look to have been constructed with either glue or screws, but have been mortised onto one another and held in place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also had its signature on the chair. Paintings project a kind of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to produce a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a related board at the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a portable piece of furniture in traveling which, in the same time, granted the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair is found in engravings of interiors of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this kind of chair might also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not decided that the style actually was born in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of slim shape; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in impressive amounts, as surmisable from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a row of these chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself with its harmonious proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric bordered with fringes.

France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature style—that is, as brought out in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The style owes such popularity to a combination of leisure and elegance. The seat adheres to the human body and permits a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike practices in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof use wood of fairly thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all extra wood has been removed, and more expensive designs may be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engraving. The wood may be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry might be used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is occasionally used instead of upholstery.

English chairs in the 18th century were more varied in style than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and was popular in large parts of the Continent, had no parallel in England. Prior to 1740, the most commonly used wood was walnut; thereafter, and for the rest of the century, it was mahogany. Walnut, though beautiful in hue, was soft and therefore less suited to wood carving than to rounded, curving forms. Outer surfaces, such as the back and seat frame, were usually veneered. During the walnut period, highly overstuffed armchairs, covered with leather or embroidered material, were also developed. The best upholstery of this period is precisely and firmly modelled and accentuated by braiding or tacks. When imports of mahogany became common, no specifically new chair designs appeared, but the character of the woodwork changed. Mahogany, having a firmer, closer grain, could be cut thinner, which meant that individual parts of the chair could be more slender in shape. Mahogany also lent itself better to carving than walnut. Carving was concentrated more on the arms and back than on the legs, which as a rule were straight and smooth with chamfered (bevelled) edges and molding. There was a wealth of variety in chairback designs, featuring elegant, pierced, vase-shaped splats or two upright posts connected by horizontal slats (ladderback).

Alongside the French Rococo chair and the best English chairs in walnut and mahogany, the stick-back chair was relatively unaffected by the stylistic changes of the day. Originally a medieval form, known, for example, from paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and still found in mid-20th century in the churches and inns of southern Europe, the stick-back chair (in all of its variations) consists basically of a solid, saddle-shaped seat into which the legs, back staves, and possibly the armrests are directly mortised. This typically peasant form underwent a renewal and a process of refinement in England and America during the 18th century. Under the name Windsor chair (a term that seems to have been used for the first time in 1731) or Philadelphia chair, it became commonly known and was widely distributed throughout the world.

Late 18th to 20th century
In the Neoclassical period, no basic changes took place in chair forms, but legs became straight and dimensions lighter. Backs in the shape of classical vases replaced the fanciful outlines of the Rococo period. Around 1800, freely executed imitations of Greek and Roman chairs of the klismos type, with curved legs and backrest, appeared. French chairs of the Empire period, executed in dark mahogany and embellished with ornate bronze mounts, created a ponderous effect.

In cheaper products of inferior workmanship, bourgeois chairs of the 19th century carried on the traditions of the 17th and 18th centuries. The only real innovations were the bentwood (wood that has been bent and shaped) chairs in beech that became popular all over the world and were still made in the 20th century. Around 1900 the continental Art Nouveau and Jugendstil styles (French and German styles characterized by organic foliate forms, sinuous lines, and non-geometric forms), and the Arts and Crafts movement in England (established by the English poet and decorator William Morris to reintroduce idealized standards of medieval craftsmanship), gave rise to original chair designs by Eugène Gaillard in France, Henry van de Velde in Belgium, Josef Hoffman in Austria, Antonio Gaudí in Spain, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland. These new furniture styles did not exercise wide, let alone decisive, influence. The Art Nouveau chairs designed by the French architect Hector Guimard, for example, are collector’s pieces, but his name is known to a broader public only because of his fanciful entrances to the Paris Métro.

Modern
After World War I, the Bauhaus school in Germany became a creative centre for revolutionary thinking, resulting, for example, in tubular steel chairs designed by the architects Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and others. During World War II, the aircraft industry accelerated the development of laminated wood and molded plastic furniture. The dominant chair forms of this period go back to designs by Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson, and Charles and Ray Eames. Rapid technical developments, in conjunction with an ever-increasing interest in human-factors engineering, or ergonomics, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.

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