Every now and then, one particular item at auction grabs your attention. This week, it was a sweet little dark-wood handmade chair for a child named Richard.
It sat alone atop a table in the auction house’s furniture room, compelling me to stop and admire and marvel. It had been made by Richard’s father (or grandfather), for carved in the wood on the inside lower back was the inscription “To Richard, From Papa.”
The initials “R.L.” were engraved at the top back of the chair. I wondered who Richard and Papa were, when they lived and how they lived. Based on the size of the chair, I can surmise that Richard was about 3 or 4 years old, possibly the first or only son in the family.
It had a folk-art sensibility to it because of its rustic look and lack of pretense. It was made for Richard to use, not to sit in a corner as decoration (unless Mama sometimes used it as a time-out chair for him). The chair had metal studs along the sides, back and outer top edges, and carved designs in the wood. Richard had apparently used it often: The rough leather seat was torn and ragged.
I was drawn to the chair because of the love and care that emanated from it. You could feel Papa’s hands on it as he carefully dug out wood or hammered studs or stretched leather across the seat. For a little color, he had inserted what looked like a mother of pearl or bone triangle near the top.
The chair was so popular that one of the auctioneers stopped his own auction in one room to bid on the chair, which was among the furniture in another room. He was one of two bidders, but he lost out, though.
Richard’s chair sold for $130. What stories it has to tell.
