<I>Wire frame, armchair</I>

ca. 1860-1940

Some of the most popular designs in funeral flowers in the late nineteenth century were those that appealed to the sentimentality of the period. These flower frame designs were both more decorative and more personal in their references. Shapes alluded to lives cut short and the loss of cherished relationships. As a visual genre, unfilled furniture came to represent a deceased loved one in nineteenth-century mourning iconography. These designs were in form of objects that the deceased had interacted with and became a personification of the individual who had been lost. The Vacant Chair or Empty Chair appeared in a variety of mediums in mourning paraphernalia, from the cemetery to photography. The chair that was once occupied, now left vacant implied the absence or loss of a family member, particularly an authoritative figure. This made the Empty Chair particularly suited to men, especially those in positions of authority; however, any father as head of the household was worthy of such a tribute in the nineteenth century. The Vacant Chair design could also be more general in its connotations, indicating any missing member of the family or community. A variation on the Empty Chair design, the Armchair could also be used as a symbol of ease and a charming life. The Vacant Chair or Empty Chair was usually an elaborate and massive floral design. It was usually life-sized. Depending on the ambitiousness of the designs and the quality of flowers, these designs, as some of the more expensive flower frame tributes, ranged in price from $50-100 as of the early twentieth century.