MEXICAN SCHOOL, 18th Century

Anthropomorphic Side Chair

Wood
41 x 21 ½ x 18 ½ inches (104.1 x 54.6 x 47 cm)

Provenance:

Private Collection, Mexico, until 2025.

This elegant but whimsical chair is a fine example of furniture-making in 18th-century Mexico. Comparable chairs are known in the scholarly literature of Mexican colonial furniture (Figs. 1-3). Whether inspired by Chippendale chairs that made their way across the Atlantic to the Americas (or inspired by North American examples), these chairs share the unique feature of having diminutive carved shoes serving as the feet of the front legs. All were likely produced in the same anonymous workshop in Mexico. Despite sharing the same overall form, the known examples each display differences in the fine details, suggesting that each comes from a different set.

Wood and red-upholstered side chair with feet in shoes on the front legs.

Fig. 1. Mexican 18th Century, Chippendale-Inspired Anthropomorphic Chair.[1]

Blue-tinged image of a wood chair with feet in shoes on the front legs.

Fig. 2. Mexican, 18th Century, attributed to the Huichapan Region, Chippendale-Inspired Anthropomorphic Chair.[2]

Black and white photo of a wood side chair in three-quarter profile with feet in shoes on the front legs.

Fig. 3. Mexican 18th Century, Chippendale-Inspired Anthropomorphic Chair.

[1] Manuel Romero de Terreros y Vinent, Las artes industriales en la Nueva España, Mexico, 1982, cat. no. 129.

[2] “El Mueble Mexicano,” Artes de Mèxico, vol. 16, no. 118 (1969), cat. no. 47.