Brooklyn Museum: Luce Center for American Art

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Contents of Case 3: 10 objects

Shelves C & D: Special Exhibition on Metamorphic Furniture

Displayed here are examples of American nineteenth-century metamorphic, or convertible, furniture. Furniture that changes form and offers multiple functions can trace its roots to the eighteenth century. There are rare American colonial examples (such as a table that becomes a chair when the top is rotated), and ingenious cabinetmakers of pre-Revolutionary France created sophisticated pieces with hidden drawers and multiple uses to amuse an elite audience. Convertible furniture is largely a nineteenth-century development, however, that met the needs of middle-class city dwellers with limited living space. While this nineteenth-century furniture was practical, it also embodied ideas of newness and invention that both amused and intrigued early modern consumers.

Visible Storage: Case 3, Shelf A (Special Exhibition)
	84.275.5	Charles Pollock Armchair, Model DAF, ca. 1956 View object details...
	2002.107.4	Charles Eames Rocker, ca. 1950 View object details...
Visible Storage: Case 3, Shelf B (Special Exhibition)
	75.108	Clement Uhl "Perfection" Chair, model 151, 1903 View object details...
	1991.92a-b	Tom Loeser Folding Chair, 1982 View object details...
	1992.242	Douglas G. Fitch Armchair, 1986 View object details...
	1994.110	Harold L. Cohen Chair, ca. 1950 View object details...
	1996.142.46	George Nakashima Stool, "Mira", ca. 1965 View object details...
	1996.142.58	Charles Eames Armchair, ca. 1950 View object details...
Visible Storage: Case 3, Shelf C (Special Exhibition)
	81.34	Cavedra B. Sheldon Folding Invalid Chair, Patented 1876; Made ca. 1876-1895 View object details...
	1995.144	Henry James Patent Model, Mechanical Chair, ca. 1872 View object details...

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