Briefly the world’s largest ship, the luxurious RMS Lusitania was also one of the fastest ships of its era. On May 1st, 1915, the Lusitania departed from New York on a voyage to Liverpool with 1,959 passengers aboard. The cargo hold of the Lusitania held other passengers as well: 4.2 million rifle rounds, 1,250 shrapnel shell cases, and 18 fuse cases, all destined for the battlefields of the Great War. Though the Royal Navy had promised to escort the Lusitania for part of the journey, the escort never appeared.

This specimen is a piece of an oak deck chair that once graced the decks of the RMS Lusitania, measuring 4.489". The chair was among the untold tonnes of flotsam and hundreds of bodies that washed ashore in Cobh, Ireland (known as Queenstown at the time) and was held on public display for decades. It was acquired at auction from Christie’s London office in late 2016.