The origin of the living room chair

The living room chair is a kind of furniture for daily life, a seat with a backrest and armrests. Modern living room chairs pursue beauty and fashion, and some living room chairs are no longer just sitting tools, which give more technology and make humans more convenient. In the wall paintings of Cave 285 in Dunhuang, there are images of two people sitting on chairs in the living room; in the wall paintings of Cave 257 there are women sitting on square stools and cross-legged benches; and the stone carvings of Longmen Lotus Cave show women sitting on round stools. These images vividly reproduce the use of chairs and stools in official and noble families during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Although the sitting equipment at that time already had the shape of a living room chair and stool, people still used to call it "Hu bed" because there was no title of chair or stool at that time. In temples, it was often used for sitting meditation, so it was also called Zen bed. After the Tang Dynasty, the use of living room chairs gradually increased, and the name of the living room chair was also widely used, and it was separated from the category of beds. Therefore, when discussing the origin of chairs and stools, we must start with the Hu Chuang that was introduced through India during the Han and Wei Dynasties.