Chairs stayed rare status seats until the sixteenth century
A chair seats one person with legs, a seat, and a backrest in wood, metal, or synthetics, often padded. English chair comes via Old French from Latin cathedra and Greek kathedra. Everyday sitting long preferred chests, benches, and stools; chairs only became common in the 1500s.
Egyptian Early Dynastic examples (c. 3100 BC) already show carved wood covered in cloth or leather for elites.
For centuries the chair was a symbol of state and dignity more than a household object, which is why 'the chair' still stands for authority in the House of Commons in Britain and Canada. Ordinary Egyptian families seldom owned one, and when they did it was usually reserved for the master of the house. China's earliest chair images come from 6th-century Buddhist murals and stele, but chairs became widespread there only in the 12th century, and in Europe the Renaissance turned the chair from a privilege of rank into standard furniture for anyone who could pay.
Visiting the Ashanti royal palace in 1819, Thomas Edward Bowdich saw chairs worked with gold. In 19th-century America a chair for each family member at dinner became normal, and by the 1830s factory-made 'fancy chairs' were sold in sets. The 20th century added all-metal folding chairs, moulded plastic, ergonomic designs and the recliner, boosted by radio and television, while the 1960s brought the butterfly chair, bean bags and the Bofinger chair of 1966, among the first mass-produced plastic chairs.
Design rests on body measurements: popliteal height, from the underside of the foot to the back of the knee, has a median of 16.3 inches for American men and 15.0 for women, and seat depths on mass-produced chairs run 15 to 17 inches. About 15% of women and 2% of men need a footrest even at a 16-inch seat height. French separates the fauteuil, with arms, from the armless chaise, and experimental chairs have been made from volcanic rock and from 27 kilograms of sugar.
Source: Chair
