Chair #204

PORTUGUESE HALL CHAIR

—Designer unknown

Talk about having a national flavor! Portuguese furniture such as this chair is often wildly ornate. Legendary seafarers returned to Portugal with delicious new materials—lacquer from the Orient, Brazilian jacaranda and mahogany, Indian rosewood, West Indian satinwood, African ebony—and with that wood came lots of delicious new ideas in furniture. Portuguese furniture incorporates unpredictable combinations from varied influences...sometimes Asian, sometimes English, sometimes Spanish. This particular chair is circa 1720, made of jacaranda with intricately embossed and painted leather.