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Hanging Seat

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Photo Credit: Photograph by Karen Mauch


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Bookmark: http://triarte.brynmawr.edu/objects-1/info/166287



Designed by
Lockwood de Forest
American (1850 - 1932) Primary

Manufactured by
Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company
Indian Manufacturer



Hanging Seat

ca. 1881-1886
Wood, metal

25 in. x 56 in. x 31 in. (63.5 cm x 142.24 cm x 78.74 cm)

Bryn Mawr College
Accession Number: Deanery.363
Acquisition Date: 1935
Geography: North and Central America and Asia, United States and India
Classification: Furnishings and Furniture; Furniture
Collection: Deanery Collection
Description: Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932) was an American-born artist who is most well-known for his landscape painting and interior design, as well as for his partnership with Louis Comfort Tiffany and the Associated Artists in New York. As a young man he travelled frequently with his family, touring Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East before the age of 25, but his greatest interest was in the decorative arts of Eastern India. De Forest spent many years in Ahmedabad overseeing a workshop where craftsmen produced carved furniture, tracery panels, jewelry, and textiles for export to New York City.

This “swing-settee” was manufactured by the Ahmedabad Wood Carving Co. and used in M. Carey Thomas’s large sitting room, the Dorothy Vernon Room. The room was modeled after one in Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, England, which Thomas had visited numerous times while she was a student, traveling in Europe. De Forest designed the room as a mixture of English and East Indian design, although Japanese teakwood tables and Tiffany lamps were used in the room as well. After the Deanery was razed in 1968, a new Dorothy Vernon Room was installed in Haffner Hall, about a quarter size of the original room, where many of the ceiling stencils, furniture, and other furnishings were re-located.

The hanging seat is one of the most unique pieces of Deanery furniture designed by Lockwood de Forest. It is made of intricately carved filigree panels on a frame hung from four bronze chains. Human and animal figures – including elephants and birds – as well as pierced bosses and discs decorate the ornate chains.

Keywords Click a term to view the records with the same keyword
This object has the following keywords:
  • Arts and Crafts - An aesthetic and social movement of the late 19th century that originated in England and spread to the United States, Germany, and Northern Europe. A reaction against industrialization and the quality of manufactured goods, the movement is marked by a desire to revive the craftsmanship associated with traditional arts, a form follows function philosophy, and an idealized view of the medieval craft guilds.
  • brass - Alloy of copper and zinc, usually with copper as the major alloying element and zinc up to 40% by weight. For an alloy consisting mainly of copper, combined most often with tin, but at times also with other metals, use "bronze (metal)."
  • carvings - Refers to works executed by cutting a figure or design out of a solid material such as stone or wood. It typically refers to works that are relatively small in size, are part of a larger work, or are not considered art. For large and medium-sized three-dimensional works of art, use the broader term "sculpture" or another appropriate term.
  • Indian - Nationality, styles, and culture of the modern nation of India, or more broadly to cultures that developed on the subcontinent of India, which is bounded by the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Himalayn Mountains. It may also refer even more broadly to cultures of India, the East Indies, and the former British Indian Empire. It was formerly used less specifically to refer to any Oriental or Asian culture. Do not use this term to refer to the indigenous populations of North or South America; see "Native American" or other appropriate terms.
  • seats - The part of seating furniture on which one sits.
  • sofas - Long, upholstered seating objects with a back and two ends, and primarily used for sitting rather than reclining. Distinct from "couches (reclining furniture)" which have a back support and one end and are primarily used for reclining rather than sitting. The term "sofa" was first used in France at the end of the 17th century as an alternative for canapé. The terms sofa and settee are virtually interchangeable in 20th-century usage but there is a distinction between the two; a sofa is generally completely upholstered.
  • swings - Any of various objects consisting usually of a seat or seats suspended from above, by ropes, chains, or poles, so as to swing freely, and designed for recreation, as those found in playgrounds.
  • teak - Wood of the species Tectona grandis, native to south and southeast Asia, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar; it is cultivated in many additional areas, including Africa and the Caribbean. Teak is a golden brown wood with a straight grain and coarse texture, very resistant to insects and decay. It is used for high quality furniture, boxes, chests, doors, shipbuilding, railway carriages, veneer, and in India also for building houses. Teak wood retains an aromatic leathery smell for over a hundred years or more.

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Additional Image Deanery.363_BMC_d.jpg
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Additional Image Deanery.363_BMC_f.jpg
Deanery.363_BMC_f.jpg

Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Bibliography List
The following Bibliography exist for this object:
  • Roberta A. Mayer, Lockwood De Forest University of Delaware Press. Newark, NJ, 2008
    Page Number: 143, Figure Number: 120
  • Manufacturers' Appraisal Company, 1949 Manufacturers' Appraisal. 1949
    Page Number: 19
  • Manufacturers' Appraisal Company, 1954 Manufacturers' Appraisal. 1954
    Page Number: 26

Related Object(s) Click a record to view
Image of Sofa
Sofa

Deanery.362

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<ref name=BMC>cite web |url=http://triarte.brynmawr.edu/objects-1/info/166287 |title=Hanging Seat |author=Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections |accessdate=3/28/2024 |publisher=Bryn Mawr College</ref>

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