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Collections

Unidentified artists
Easy Chair (Butaca)second half of the 18th century

On view:
Geffen Galleries
Wooden armchair with chestnut-brown cabriole legs ending in ball-and-claw feet, slate blue-gray upholstered back and seat, and curved open armrests
Artist or Maker
Unidentified artists
Title
Easy Chair (Butaca)
Place Made
Venezuela
Date Made
second half of the 18th century
Medium
Mahogany, seat and back upholstered in horsehair over cedar frame
Dimensions
40 3/8 × 25 3/8 × 26 7/8 in. (102.6 × 64.5 × 68.3 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Adriana Cisneros in honor of Gustavo Dudamel
Accession Number
M.2013.209
Classification
Furnishings
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

The butaca, or easy chair, ranks among the most original legacies of colonial cabinetmaking in Venezuela. The unique form of this seat derives from an Indigenous prototype, called a butaca or putaca in the language of the Cumanagoto people of the northeast coast of present-day Venezuela. Butacas were customized pieces designed to be used for relaxation in intimate domestic spaces. This example combines the form’s typical backward-tilting seat and high back with fashionable European chair elements, such as claw-and-ball feet.

Ilona Katzew

2024

Provenance
Collection of Luis Suárez Borges, Caracas, Venezuela, c. 1935; collection of Arnold Zingg Aranguren, Caracas, Venezuela, 1969; collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela, 2000; LACMA, 2013.
Selected 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.
  • Duarte, Carlos F. Un asiento venezolano llamado butaca. Exh. cat. Caracas: Centro de Arte La Estancia, 1999.
Selected Exhibition History
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

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