The chair sat there alone, like the lucky prize in some strange contest. It was draped in the fur of some animal I did not recognize, its arms and legs the horn of the same creature.
No one seemed to be enamored with it when I first saw the chair at the auction house. I had arrived late, so most folks had probably seen it, talked about it, joked about it (because that’s what we do at auction) and had long moved on. By the time I got to the auction, the sale was plodding along and eyes were fixed on the auctioneer.
The chair was described by the auction house as a “Large Decorator Steer Horn Chair. Hide Upholstery. Gold Studded Trim.”
It was being sold during one of the auction house’s Modern Design sales, and I suppose that this steer horn chair would qualify. It looked contemporary enough to be modern, especially since some of the pieces at this type of auction don’t necessarily pertain to modern as in our time. The modern was in the style and period of the items, which ranged from a group of Herman Miller office chairs to 1940s Charles Eames plywood DCW chairs to a 1970s console table to an Orrefors glass vase to Mastercraft cabinets to Bejar Magiscope sculptures.
This was not the first time I’d seen a chair made with animal fur. At another auction house last year, a chair draped in rabbit fur was up for sale. It even had two natural wooden extensions above its back that resembled rabbit ears.
I found both chairs to be great conversation pieces (or an attention-grabber, as one retail site noted about its $1,200 horn chair), but I could envision neither in my house. I wondered who had designed them, originally bought them, bid and won them at auction and would buy them again. Since this was a “steer” chair, maybe it came from the home of some western would-be cowboy. One retail site suggested its chair (which had been sold after being reduced from $4,000), for “mid-century, southwest or over the top eclectic (our favorite) interior.”
To my surprise, steer chairs weren’t produced on a whim. In fact, according to the online National Texas Longhorn Museum, horn furniture is not rare. It’s pretty common. The online museum is run by a man named Alan Rogers, who described himself as a collector and historian in Kansas City, MO.
The furniture was first seen in this country around 1876 when a Chicago furniture company displayed a chair with horn arms during the Chicago Inter-State Industrial Exposition, which had opened for the first time in 1873. Seems that this type of furniture was made in Germany in 1833 but did not get noticed until about 20 years later at the Crystal Palace Exhibit in London. By the 19th century it was being mass-produced in this country with the horns of longhorn cattle. In the East, this furniture conjured up the images of the Old West, which was disappearing.
The most common type of horn furniture are apparently chairs. The pieces were made by individuals in small lots, and by large companies like Freidrich’s and several others, according to the Longhorn museum. Most of the pieces are not marked, according to the site, which urges buyers to learn how to distinguish between the commercial makers before buying a horn chair.
The museum has photo of a Wenzel Friedrich horn chair made in San Antonio, TX, in the 1880s. His chairs had Tiffany glass ball casters, and the hides were made from either cattle, angora goat, jaguar and fox. The finials on the pointed ends of the horns were acorns.
The website showed a Friedrich platform rocking chair with “horn-veneered seat frame, inlaid ivory star and two cushions in cat hide. Sold new in 1889 for $80.” The website also offered an array of fur and horn chairs, along with horn clocks and a Friedrich table with horn legs.
This 1890 Friedrich chair sold at auction two years ago for $5,500. Even though I’m not into horns, it is a lovely chair. Here’s a 28″ high chair, presumably for a child.
I didn’t check for a manufacturer’s name on the chair at auction, but it obviously was not an antique. It was, though, in the right kind of sale with the right kind of bidder. It sold for $700.
This chair is made not too long ago. I have an office chair made by the same maker in Texas. I paid $900 for mine. It is nearly identical to it. Craftsmanship is exactly the same. Pattern is the same.