Easy Chair (Butaca)

Spanish Colonial Art
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Easy Chair (Butaca)

Venezuela, second half of the 18th century
Furnishings; Furniture
Mahogany, seat and back upholstered in horsehair over cedar frame
40 3/8 × 25 3/8 × 26 7/8 in. (102.6 × 64.5 × 68.3 cm)
Gift of Adriana Cisneros in honor of Gustavo Dudamel (M.2013.209)
Latin American Art
Not currently on public view

Provenance

Collection of Luis Suárez Borges, Caracas, c. 1935; collection of Arnold Zingg Aranguren, Caracas, 1969; collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas, 2000; LACMA, 2013.

Label

The butaca ranks among the most original legacies of Venezuelan Spanish colonial cabinetmaking.

...

The butaca ranks among the most original legacies of Venezuelan Spanish colonial cabinetmaking. The unique form, with its high back and backward-tilting seat, derives from an Indigenous prototype, which the Cumanagoto Indians of the province of Cumaná (on the northeast coast of present-day Venezuela) called butaca or putaca. Butacas were customized pieces designed to be used by a single individual for relaxation and were mostly confined to intimate spaces of the home.


From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Carlos F. Duarte in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 91, pp. 342–45)
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Bibliography

  • Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
  • Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
  • Duarte, Carlos F. Un asiento venezolano llamado butaca. Exh. cat. Caracas: Centro de Arte La Estancia, 1999.
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Exhibition history

  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Nashville, TN, Frist Art Museum, October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024