The swooping curves, floral rondels, and hoof feet of this painted chair combine inspiration from Pompeii, the Roman city covered by volcanic ash in 79 CE, and Japanese artistic motifs. The prestigious firm Herter Brothers designed and made this chair as part of a set for art collector and financier J. Pierpont Morgan, whose New York City mansion was the first in the nation wired for electric lighting. The golden chairs, visible in this 1883 photograph of the estate's drawing room, would have glowed under newly installed lightbulbs.