CHAIRS: HALL AND PORTER’S
18thC mahogany hall chair - Regency hall chair with sabre legs - oak and mahogany hall chairs
Distinctive 18thC mahogany hall chair with a carved shell back.
18th and 19th century antique hall chairs designed to stand in the hall (also corridors and landings) of large houses. Used by servants and visitors of low standing while waiting to be called in attendance. Consequently hall chairs have hard wooden seats, always without cushions. Usually made in large sets of chairs, often of a dozen or more.
Distinctive waisted chair backs, the sides of the lower part inward-curving or scrolled. Generally solid back with carved decoration, but can be partly pierced (usually on cresting or lower part). Often a central panel containing the carved or painted crest or emblem of the owner (a device intended to impress visitors on entering the house).
Regency hall chair with sabre legs.
Shape variable. Popular designs include: shells, shields, crescents, ovals and vases. Heavily carved Gothic architectural forms such as arches, pinnacles, crockets popular around 1830.
Solid wooden seats, often of curvaceous outline and sometimes with circular dish turned in centre (to stop the sitter sliding off the shiny surface).
Hall chair legs followed prevailing patterns set by early versions: cabriole legs with pad feet, followed after about 1765 by turned or square-sectioned tapering legs. Sabre legs common during Regency followed by straight turned legs again, becoming heavier after about 1825. A few based on Italian Renaissance scabello; could be (correctly) heavily carved, or completely lacking decoration.
Hall chairs are always mahogany, but occasionally oak. Rosewood or walnut only rarely.
Standard methods employed for chair legs and seat frame. The wooden seat simply rests on top of the underframe.
Mostly carving. Monograms were painted on. Additional partial gilding was not uncommon after about 1800.
If the chair is completely painted beech or pine it is probably not a hall chair. Very similar chairs  often with a ’shell’ back  were made for use in gardens and garden buildings.
VALUES. Very often antique hall chairs are found in pairs today, seldom in long sets. Not very popular, due mostly to their total lack of comfort. Best quality long sets of pairs fetch four-figure sums.

CHAIRS — hall and porters
Though grouped for convenience they are in fact complete opposites. The hall chair offers a rock-like resistance to the posterior and the back no comfort. It is almost as though they were designed to impress on those made to wait, the fact they were being made to do so. They were made in sets and were often carved with emblems of coats of arms as if to further enhance the superior position of their owner. The porter’s chair on the other hand was made reasonably comfortable to protect him from the rigours of a job which condemned him to draughts, and if comfortable are very desirable.
Back patterns are normally little guide to date as they continued to be made over long periods. It is the legs which normally provide the key as to age.
Understandably the uncomfortable ones do not command large sums for they have a very limited application to the modern home.
A hall chair of a type usually made in sets — this was one of seventeen. This example shows a highly-carved shell back with a crest motif. The pascal lamb with halo might suggest a religious establishment. The legs
are turned and reeded. 1820-1840
A mahogany hall chair of whimsical design with a pierced back. The design for the base and seat with its curious round dished centre and eccentric stretcher is straight out of Bridgen’s catalogue of 1838.
Typical of the many curved back designs which went on being made throughout the century. The hexagonal legs suggest the 1830s.
A rather unfair porter’s chair with an extremely hard solid seat,on    cabriole    legs,    in mahogany.
1850-1870
Much more comfort; a deeply buttoned hall porter’s chair, well designed to exclude those severe draughts. As the cost of deep buttoning in leather is very high, condition is highly relevant to price. A modern example
costs 800. Mid-18th century
A design of wicker work hooded chair, Welsh ash frame with straw cover. They were made in most areas but survived longest in Monmouthshire and the Severn area. Early 19th century