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Ancient furniture


There are few survivals of ancient Greek and Roman furniture, but a number of images in reliefs, painted pottery and other media. It was normally made of wood, but expensive examples were often fitted with metalwork elements, which have a better chance of survival. The styles were generally rather light and elegant in upper-class furniture, and by modern standards apparently not heavily upholstered. Some items entirely in metal, such as lampstands, braziers and stands for sacrifice, have survived, and some covered by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius have either been carbonized or left hollows in the volcanic rock that can be used as moulds for plaster of Paris, allowing a clear idea of their original form. The rich had tables and chairs supported by marble, and some of these have survived. Wicker was widely used for armchairs.

Ancient Greek furniture was typically constructed out of wood, though it might also be made of stone or metal, such as bronze, iron, gold and silver. Little wood survives from ancient Greece, though varieties mentioned in texts concerning Greece and Rome include maple, oak, beech, yew, and willow. Pieces were assembled using mortise-and-tenon joinery, held together with lashings, pegs, metal nails, and glue. Wood was shaped by carving, steam treatment, and the lathe, and furniture is known to have been decorated with ivory, tortoise shell, glass, gold or other precious materials. Similarly, furniture could be veneered with expensive types of wood in order to make the object appear more costly, though classical furniture was often pared down in comparison to objects attested in the East, or those from earlier periods in Greece.

Extensive research was done on the forms of Greek furniture by Gisela Richter, who utilized a typological approach based primarily on illustrated examples depicted in Greek art, and it is from Richter’s account that the main types can be delineated.

The modern word “throne” is derived from the ancient Greek thronos (Greek singular: θρόνος), which was a seat designated for deities or individuals of high status or honor. The colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, constructed by Phidias and lost in antiquity, featured the god Zeus seated on an elaborate throne, which was decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony and ivory, according to Pausanias. Less extravagant though more influential in later periods is the klismos (Greek singular: κλισμός), an elegant Greek chair with a curved backrest and legs whose form was copied by the Romans and is now part of the vocabulary of furniture design. A fine example is shown on the grave stele of Hegeso, dating to the late fifth century B.C.E. As with earlier furniture from the east, the klismos and thronos could be accompanied by footstools. There are three types of footstools outlined by Richter – those with plain straight legs, those with curved legs, and those shaped like boxes that would have sat directly on the ground.


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