The first thing many people notice when they look at President Obama’s official portrait is the background. But just as worthy of attention is the rather interesting chair he’s sitting in.

Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley, oil on canvas, 2018. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. © 2018 Kehinde Wiley.

Most of the coverage to date has not paid too much attention to it. The New York Times described it as “vaguely thronelike,” the Chicago Tribune “ornate,” the New Yorker “delicately detailed.” The Washington Post gave it the most attention:

The 44th president is seated at a chair that “combines 18th-century and turn-of-the-20th century motifs,” [art historian Robert] Hobbs said. “It’s a great way of setting up the president, who combines in himself very different cultures and different worlds.”

That blend of styles is what makes the chair so interesting, and leads us to wonder what Kehinde Wiley meant to convey by choosing it.

But before we dive in, I should note that I am not a furniture historian; merely a chair enthusiast who had just one (thrilling) semester of decorative arts history when I was in college. And it’s possible that this just happens to be a chair the Obamas have in their house, and it was selected for its charm and overall harmony with the rest of the composition.

But if the very little I know about portraiture is correct — almost all of it from the episode of The Crown about Winston Churchill’s portrait, and Tulip Fever, which I watched on a plane a few months ago— objects in portraits are inserted, rather than happenstance as they might be in a photo. Why go to the trouble of painting its features in such extreme detail if they weren’t meaningful?

The chair borrows many of its features, especially the reeding and turning, from the Regency period of 1810–1830. The front legs are reeded in between the turns and the back legs in the style of a Greek Klismos chair. The arms follow a somewhat subdued Regency style as well (though the arm supports have what appear to be exuberantly detailed tassels that echo Renaissance Revival of the late 19th century). The early Neoclassical period borrowed from Greek and Roman styles to establish a sense of legitimacy and lineage for the new United States; by the time the Regency period started in 1810, people started to experiment with the classical designs. Regency represents a time when the United States was still rapidly changing and emerging, but also growing into its own with enough confidence to experiment and add on to the past.

Compare the chair to this example from 1835. You can see the similarities in the front legs, the back legs, the shape of stiles supporting the back of the chair, and echoes of the scrolls in the arms.

Now, you may ask, why would a chair have a different style in the front than in the back? This was partly the style, but mostly evolved as a way to save money. Chairs would be kept along the walls in the house, so guests would see the front, but not the back; as chairs of this style at the time would be made to order, many people would have the front adorned and the back largely left alone. Only the most ornate chairs of the time would have the front and back carved.

What’s interesting is that the President is being portrayed in a style of chair that was originally designed with a sensibility of cost in mind.

Compare this to the Baroque chairs at Kronborg Castle, the castle of Denmark’s King Christian IV during the height of the Danish kingdom in the 17th century. The chairs in his private quarters were exquisitely turned on all four legs and on the stretchers — an exorbitantly expensive feature. King Christian IV controlled and exercised tolls on the seas in Scandinavia, and his chairs themselves signified his power and wealth.

Another interesting part of Obama’s chair worth pointing out is the back, or splat. It features a modernized overlapping x-form scroll back, found in chairs of the early 19th century — but a flat back, which was not found in chairs of the time. It’s so peculiar for a Regency chair that my first impression of the chair overall was more overwhelmed by its modernness, and I thought less of traditional American antiques and more of the curved, flat backs of Danish modern, such as the Metropolitan Chair (1949).

It’s unlikely this is an authentic inspiration for the chair — the unique splat and combination of Regency and Renaissance Revival features likely places it in the Federal revival of the early 20th century, where some modernity may have crept in — but it is noteworthy nonetheless because its modernity is striking and unexpected.

On the opposite end, another unexpected element is the simple part holding the seat, the apron. For a chair with such extensive ornamentation, the apron is almost aggressively unadorned. It looks like it may have a slight inlay or veneer, but is otherwise somewhat plain.

Compare this to what most people might picture when they think of the ultimate Nice Antique Chair: a Chippendale chair. This 1770 Thomas Affleck chair oozes pedigree, prestige, and power. It is exquisitely carved all around, especially the apron, which features a carved skirt and acanthus leaves on the knees.

Photo Credit: The Met

If Kehinde Wiley wanted to portray Obama as conventionally powerful and respectable, he probably would have put him in a Chippendale chair.

But he didn’t.

He chose a chair that at once seems dignified without being stuffy, classically evocative yet modern.

There’s more to the story of the chair and why it’s in that painting, and I hope we’l hear more from Wiley on that piece of the portrait puzzle.

UPDATE, 2/20: Art blogger Greg Allen was also intrigued by the chair, and his investigation came to a surprising and exciting conclusion:

It felt like conceding defeat to ask the artist for the answer, which I did, two days later, via the [National Portrait Gallery’s] press office, since it’s their painting now…Word came back, but no detail: Wiley had created the chair. It is an imaginary synthesis of design details for which there is no explanation.

The chair now seems all the more worth analysis. What drove Wiley to invent this chair, and give it the features it has?

Looking at the portrait again, several rather perplexing features jump out.

Obvious but worth noting is that it is an armchair — historically the seat of power at a table. But the arm of the chair is incredibly high. It is highly unusual to see a chair with such high arm rests, almost 4/5ths of the way up the chair. Even for a tall man like President Obama, such a chair would probably result in a crunched position. (If it were a real chair, this strange feature might explain his pose. But alas.)

Next is the back of the chair itself. Several things are highly unusual about the back of the chair: 1) the round splat with what appears to be walnut inlay; 2) the stiles that stand alongside the splat; and 3) the overlapping criss-crosses below the splat.

First, the round splat. A splat of this style is highly, highly unusual. In all of my years as an armchair armchair enthusiast, I have never seen a splat quite like it. Consider this index of the lineage of chair families — nothing even remotely comes close. (Full size version)

Credit: Designmuseum Danmark

But the pattern and style was also very familiar, in an eerie way. The walnut inlay, prototypically acanthus leaves, the shape…but it just didn’t look like a chair. As I struggled to place it, I realized: its pattern and shape aren’t from a chair at all — it’s borrowed from a tilt-top tea table! Consider for comparison this likely-late 19th century Regency Revival (i.e., Victorian) table:

The next, and at the moment last, mystery of the back of the chair is the secondary criss-crossed splat below the main splat. Not only is it highly unusual to have two splats, but the design is also somewhat puzzling. It bears some similarities to the patterns of a Hepplewhite shield chair, for example:

But its flared lines seem almost modern and casual compared to the reserved draping of Hepplewhite. The intertwined crosses bring to mind another image, one that might be evocative of Obama’s heritage: the Celtic knot.

Artist: Mark Cooper (Etsy)

It seems implausible, and perhaps the criss-crossed back is more an echo of Chippendale-style chairs, lending the composition some conventional prestige.

Still, the back of the chair is perplexing. Combining a Victorian-era inlay style typically found on a table lends the composition heft, and unusual secondary splat with its vaguely modern the criss-crosses gives it a more relaxed air.

Why have all of these elements been combined?

Only Kehinde Wiley knows.

I hope he’ll tell the story of this magnificently befuddling chair he invented soon.