Folding furniture is furniture designed to collapse, hinge or fold so that it can be stored, carried or adapted for different uses. It includes folding chairs and stools, gateleg and drop-leaf tables, card tables with foldover tops, campaign beds, screens, metamorphic library steps and a wide range of travelling and military pieces.
The principle is ancient: X-framed folding stools were used in Egypt and Rome, and the folding chair became a symbol of authority in medieval Europe. In Britain, ingenious folding and metamorphic designs flourished in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, encouraged by cabinetmakers' pattern books and patent furniture makers. Officers' campaign furniture, made to be dismantled and packed for travel, is one of the most collected types, often in mahogany or camphor wood with brass corners. Folding garden and deck chairs, steamer chairs and directors' chairs belong to the same tradition. Collectors look for clever and robust mechanisms, original hinges, locks and fittings, and good timber. Heavily repaired hinges or stiff, damaged joints can reduce value. Folding furniture is valued today for its practicality in smaller homes and for occasional entertaining, and its engineering often has strong visual appeal.
