Provincial Plank Chair (Brettstuhl), 19th century, carved and dark-stained wood, 93 × 44 × 64 cm
Not Attributed
Provincial Plank Chair (Brettstuhl) with Carved Knight and Squire, Austria, 1800s
Carved wood, dark-stained
93 x 44 x 64 cm
36 5/8 x 17 3/8 x 25 1/4 in
Seat height 45 cm
36 5/8 x 17 3/8 x 25 1/4 in
Seat height 45 cm
Copyright The Artist
A three-legged plank chair (Brettstuhl) in the vernacular tradition of the Alpine workshop, carved in a Gothic idiom and darkened with age. The backrest holds two figures in profile — a knight and his squire — each set within a tondo, a chivalric world reduced to the span of a chairback. Drying cracks, knocks, and old replacements throughout: the marks of a working object that has outlasted the use it was made for.