Late 15th century

High-Backed Armchair

This chair, with its high back and elaborately carved rear panel, would have been used by an important person. Scholars in the 1800s believed that this chair came from the chapel of the Pénitents blancs d’Apt, not far from Avignon in southern France. The Pénitents were a religious confraternity whose lay members performed acts of charity and service in their community, and the seat was perhaps used by its master. The carved decorative elements on its back resemble the branching, flowering lines of tracery seen in late Gothic architecture.