Turned chairs — sometimes called thrown chairs or spindle chairs — represent a style of Elizabethan or Jacobean turned furniture that were in vogue in the late 16th and early 17th century England, New England and Holland. In turned furniture, the individual wooden spindles of the piece are made by shaping them with chisels and gouges while they are being turned on a lathe. Joiners or carpenters who made such furniture were termed "turners", or "bodgers", hence the surname Turner. Today, turned chairs — as well as various turned decorative elements — are still commonly made, but by machines rather than by hand.
Turned chair, in the Bishop's Palace, Wells, Somerset, England (Early 17th century)
The original "Carver's Chair" in an old stereoscopic image.
The "Brewster Chair" (shown with a period wicker cradle) is at Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
A stool is a raised seat commonly supported by three or four legs, but with neither armrests nor a backrest, and typically built to accommodate one occupant. As some of the earliest forms of seat, stools are sometimes called backless chairs despite how some modern stools have backrests. Folding stools can be collapsed into a flat, compact form typically by rotating the seat in parallel with fold-up legs.
Three-legged joined stool
Bar stool "Eiffel Tower" from 1950, Paris/ France
Molded plastic stools
Typical English oak joint stools, 17th century