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Musical Box Chair

Datec. 1910
DimensionsLength: 100 cm
Width (at widest part of seat): 47 cm
Credit LineGift of Allan Ralph, London, Ontario, 2015.
Object number2015.029.001
Label TextThe seat of this chair hides a music box. Its mechanism activated when someone sat down. This is just one example of musical novelties popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An 1893 advertisement in Life for New York store, Paillard’s Music Boxes, also promoted the sale of musical water pitchers, decanters, and albums. People loved to receive them as gifts, the ad continued, because of their “beauty, usefulness, and oddity.”
NameChair, Music