Images(4)

Armchair

Maker George Hunzinger (American, 1835 - 1898)

Collections

American Decorative Arts

ClassificationsDECORATIVE ARTS

Dateca. 1869

Mediumwalnut, parcel-gilt, brass, brocade fabric

Dimensions42 1/2 × 24 × 24 in. (108 × 61 × 61 cm.)

DescriptionOrnately carved walnut chair with red patterned upholstered seat and back cushions.

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds from the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation

Status

Not on view

Label TextBorn in Germany, George Hunzinger moved to New York in 1855 after apprenticing with his cabinetmaker father and working as a journeyman in Switzerland. Solidly grounded in venerable European cabinetmaking traditions, Hunzinger quickly became one of the most inventive furniture designers in mid-19th-century America. In the course of his life, he secured patents on no fewer than twenty innovative furniture forms, including folding and reclining chairs, platform rockers, and tables with flip tops. This chair is based on an 1869 patent that described a diagonal support intended to reduce the "looseness [that] rises from pressure against the back of the chair, and tipping the chair backwards upon the hind legs." The chair's carved figurative details in the neo-grec style are rarely seen in Hunzinger's work.

Object number2006.6