Object: Child's Chair

This child’s chair known as “low-chair” is a rare surviving example of furniture designed in the 16th and 17th-century to help contain, train or feed infants. These were essential pieces of furniture used daily in households throughout the Netherlands and across the sea in New Netherland. These simple oak structures ensured that infants were kept out of harm’s way while household tasks needed to be completed. 

The straight-forward wooden low-chair functioned as a modern high-chair: it was used to feed the child while also keeping it safe from the kitchen’s open fireplace.