Side Chair (Taburete)

These two side chairs illustrate American responses to Old World traditions. The typical eighteenth-century Spanish colonial side chair does not differ much from its counterpart in British America. Both designs were based on English models that were adapted to suit local tastes. The cabriole leg design, a staple in colonial Rococo furniture, as well as in British and British American Queen Anne and Chippendale designs, was adopted in Spain and its overseas provinces, possibly as a result of the empire's intense but intermittent trade with England.