I’ve seen a number of chairs at auction that were made with animal body parts. There was the chair that looked like a rabbit with a seat of fur. And the chair made of steer horns. And the bench made of cow hide and feet.
But a chair I saw at auction recently was the worst use of real or imagined animal bones. The makers of the other chairs created objects that were pleasantly artistic. The maker of this chair was making art but in a crude way.
The maker had attached animal bones to the back of an antique mahogany Queen Anne chair, nailing what appeared to be the leg bones to the back of the jar and using the jaw bones with large teeth as arms. If these were real bones, I’d assume they had been treated to withstand the nails.
It’s the type of work that professionals would label “folk art,” because it was likely made by an everyday person who didn’t think of himself or herself as an artist. A folk-art chair I saw at auction a few years ago had been made for a little boy named Richard by his father or grandfather. That was a cute little chair in a tramp-art style.
The bones chair, though, was the type that a late-night comic would have big fun with.
The bones looked to be real but I wasn’t sure. Here is the chair at various angles. What do you think?
