Antique Oak Chair, Country Oak Chairs,  Charles II Armchairs

Mid-17th Century chair in oak, with elaborately carved back.
The earlier 17th century forms of chair were not dissimilar from this, with the exception of the elaborate winged scrolls on the uprights. Earlier chairs tended to be simpler, with square backs and the decorative areas were less profusely carved. Later in the century the carving exhibited a variety of motives. Note the heavy construction, with column turned legs and square stretchers. Simpler chairs have ’scratchings’ indiamond or other shapes in place of the carvings. Large quantities of these chairs were made, often with dates and initials of owners. Some are decorated with inlays of box, holly, (white) and ebony (black) in geometrical and floral designs. Country makers continued to produce them until the early 18th century.
Price Range: very wide and geared to quality of inlay and carving. Prices relate to highly carved versions; simple ones with scratch decoration are to be found at.
Victorian ‘improvers’ tended to add initials, dates and carving to simple chairs.
Mid-17th century chair. Note the diamond-shaped scratch decoration in the panelled back and solid pegged seat. The front legs are turned in rather bulbous baluster fashion, but the joints remain square and the pegs in the floor-level square section stretcher tenon joints can be seen. The seat is very worn but the remains of the moulded edge can be seen along the rear left-hand side. The front rail is carved in the same decorative manner as the back and shaped on the lower edge; again the pegged tenon joints are evident.
A mid-17th century country oak chair of pleasing simplicity and robust construction. The legs are still column turned as in our previous example and left square at the joints for the tenons, which were pegged. The back is panelled and without decoration. Not a popular collector’s chair at present but still well within reach of the modest pocket.
An oak ‘Derbyshire Chair’ of c. 1650 showing the arcaded back and split baluster decoration on the uprights. Note that the seat is inset or dished to allow for a cushion.
Cromwellian chair demonstrating movement towards lighter design still based on turning. The twist turning was popular in the period and the piece is made of walnut, a wood much more commonly used in the 17th century than is generally supposed. The chair is covered with leather fixed to the frame with heavy nails. Not a chair commonly found in antique shops; it is of a specialist collector’s taste. Bobbin turning rather than twist is often found and beech as well as oak or walnut was used.
Cromwellian oak chair of country construction. Note the square outline and the retention of the floor level square stretchers. The back is straight and the turning simple.
A Charles II - c.1675 - oak chair of radical development. The design is of Continental influence and more continuous. Apart from being carved the design of the scroll both on legs, front stretcher and back, serves to obscure rather than emphasize the method of construction. Cane backs were introduced around 1665 and help to lighten the overall appearance. Twist turning is still evident as well as the square back leg and stretcher joints.
Simpler oak chair of Charles II period with cane back. The front stretcher is simply turned and the seat has been upholstered, perhaps later. The quality is indicated by the fine sweep of the arms and the execution of the carved top cresting rail.
An oak armchair of c. 1680. Note that the stretchers also exhibit twist turning as well as all the uprights. The back carving is well executed with the top rail and front stretcher showing two cherubs supporting a coronet. These chairs, taken singly, are still somewhat undervalued although sets are a specialist demand and command high prices.
Charles II chair of c. 1680 date. The rich ornamentation and crest on the head of the chair indicate that it was made for a rich man or institution. The use of figures for legs is very Continental and the gargoyle arm rests are not of English origin. It is nevertheless typical of the elaborate examples of the period and the general style adopted by the chair makers for the richer classes.
Late 17th century country walnut chair. Note the high back. Rather than incur the expense of the cane back of the town example the country craftsmen used vertical solid bars. The stretchers still follow earlier designs with simple turning and square sections at the tenon joints. The uprights are turned.
Three more late 17th century country chairs, in oak, showing the variations possible in the back. The squab seats have been added for comfort. It is interesting not only to see the similarity of leg and stretcher constructionbut the variations possible in the turning of them.

Antique Dining Walnut and Mahogany Chairs, Regency, Victorian and George III Elbow Armchairs

A SET OF SIX WALNUT DINING CHAIRS, mid 18th century
Each with a pierced vase split and drop-in seat, on cabriole legs terminating in trifid feet.
A SET OF EIGHT EBONISED AND DECORATED ELBOW CHAIR
Each silver-painted with floral sprays and interlaced ovals with lozenges, the curved back with shaped X-framed splits, with a bowed caned seat with squab, on ring-turned tapered legs.
A MAHOGANY OPEN WING ARMCHAIR, late 19th century
With a padded undulating back and arms with moulded downswept supports, the seat on moulded square chamfered legs.
A WILLIAM IV MAHOGANY RECLINING ARMCHAIR
With a padded curved back, racketed scroll arms and seat with a sliding footrest with hinged square tapered leg supports, on inverted lotus tapered legs terminating in brass caps and castors, stamped R. Daives and
bearing a brass plate Dawe Patent, 17 Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, London.
Robert Dawes is recorded at this address between 1820 and 1839 and patented his “Improved Recumbent Chair” in 1827, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, Maney, 1986.
A REGENCY EBONISED ARMCHAIR
With a padded scroll back, arms and seat on line decorated sabre legs with castors.
A PAIR OF VICTORIAN ARMCHAIRS
Each with a moulded open back and C-scroll horizontal sprat, with scroll arms and padded serpentine seat, on cabriole legs.
A GEORGE III MAHOGANY DINING CHAIR
The angled arched back bound by a laurel garland and with an acanthus scroll lyre splat, with a padded bowedseat, on turned fluted tapered legs.
With a pierced fret-carved top and interlaced blind fret-carved tapered and stiff-leaf column, on foliate splayed tripod supports with pad feet.
A LATE VICTORIAN MAHOGANY ARMCHAIR
The shaped acanthus-carved back with a rocaille cresting and pierced interlaced vase splat, with outswept scroll arms and padded serpentine seat, on hipped C-scroll cabriole legs terminating in acanthus scroll feet.
A VICTORIAN WALNUT ARMCHAIR
With a padded curved arched back and bowed seat, on ring-turned tapered legs with castors, stamped Gowtan & Sons, Oxford St. London.
Cowtan & Sons, successors to the firm  of J. Duppa are listed as house decorators, painters, paperstainers, upholsterers and cabinet makers and were active in the second half of 19th century and early part of this
century.
A PAIR OF GEORGE III MAHOGANY LADDER-BACK DINING CHAIRS
Each with a pierced undulating top-rail and splats, with a drop-in seat, on square chamfered legs, restorations.
A PAIR OF REGENCY ROSEWOOD ELBOW CHAIRS
Each with a turned top-rail and pierced X-frame splats, with a caned bowed seat on ring-turned outswept legs.
A GEORGE III MAHOGANY ELBOW CHAIR
The back with moulded vertical splats, with a padded saddle seat, on square tapering legs, one later stretcher and part re-railed.

CHAIRS  country and kitchen : rush-seated, 1860-1930
We have started this section off with the William Morris Sussex rush-seated chair  again. This is appropriate, because the chair was a genuine country type Ire-discovered’ by the Morris firm and typical of country work
which had continued uninterrupted by the vagaries of fashion. Many of the chairs in this section are of typical country type or mass-produced simple chairs suitable for kitchens and the dining room. They are reasonably durable, suitably-priced, very functional in design and mostly pleasing to look at.
This chair may be seen on the right-hand side of the William Morris catalogue advertising the ‘Sussex’ range of rush-seated chairs. Originally they were birch, ebonised or stained dark green, using Ford Madox Brown’s
discovery of a green stain. The design of the chair is said to be traditional, and it is stronger than it looks. The posture required of the sitter is a bit severe. Note the way that the inclined arm supports go right through the seat rail and down into an extra cross stretcher, where their finely-tapered ends locate through the stretcher, like dowels, to add to strength. These chairs set a fashion for many other rush-seated types.
1865-1895
A variation on the previous design, using the same arm-support extension down through to an extra cross-stretcher. The back design is a variant on the ‘wavy-line’ ladder-back. c. 1870
A bamboo rush-seated chair in which the influence of William Morris, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Japanese or ‘quaint’ style are gaily intermingled. By the 1870s, leading firms were producing bamboo
furniture cheaply to cater for the popular Japanese vogue. In this chair the traditions of Sussex and Tokyo have been determinedly blended. 1870-1910
A fruitwood chair designed by Ernest Gimson. The rush seat is conventional. Note the careful proportion and
the spacing of the ladder back  a very satisfying chair to look at.
Not all country chairs were made by simple country craftsmen. This oak armchair with rush seat was probably designed by R. Norman Shaw about 1876 and retailed by William Morris. It rests at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who note that it was at the Tabard Inn, Bedford Park. The high back, with turned uprights and simple straight splat, owes a good deal to early 18th century chairs, but the turning on the front legs is much later in concept. c. 1876
A cleaned-off rush-seated armchair with an unusual back incorporating wavy, slightly ‘quaint’ slats with pierced circles in them. Made of birch and originally stained black. c. 1885
A rush-seated ‘art nouveau’ chair with round-capped uprights to the back which are echoed by the front legs. Although it looks simple, it is a deceptive chair, in which the plain oak surface in the back has a simple
fielded panel carved in it and the spacing of the flat cross slats beneath has been very carefully designed and proportioned. It is a chair of traditional country ancestry but redesigned in a modern, arts and crafts form
which indicates an architect behind it somewhere. 1890-1910
A chair by Liberty’s of London of rather solid oak splat construction in the ‘art nouveau’ manner.
Four small rush-seated chairs of mass-produced type in sub-Sheraton designs which were intended for kitchen or dining room use. A large variety of this type were turned out in Edwardian times. 1900-1920
A bobbin-turned yew chair with rush seat designed by Ernest Gimson. The bobbin-turning dates back to the 17th century and the style is derivative of that earlier period. Evidence again of the late 19th and early 20th
century desire to get back to simpler and more natural styles. c. 1905
A remarkable example of a low-backed ladderback chair with rush seat illustrated by Maurice Adams in 1926. The distinctive top rail is derived from the ‘Macclesfield’ design of country chair originating in 1790-1830. It is almost a faithful reproduction but the back design is not quite true. Would probably be sold nowadays as an ‘early 19th century’ chair. 1920-1930
Quite elegant ladderback rush-seated chairs of a design not far from Ernest Gimson and traditional types but, in fact, modern chairs from Maurice Adams 1926 catalogue. 1920-1940
The spindle and ladderback country chair was also made throughout the 19th century and much reproduced in the 1920s and 1930s when both types suited the vogue for oak ‘Jacobean’ dining rooms. Both these
examples are straightforward copies of early 19th century chairs taken from Maurice Adams’ 1926 catalogue. There were many producers of such chairs. On the left is a spindle-back rush-seated chair of a Lancashire
or Yorkshire type made from the 18th century onwards. On the right a `wavy-line’ ladderback of similar dating. Both are popular country chairs and have continued to be sought after. It is likely that many 20th century versions, with a bit of wear knocked into them, would be sold as being of much earlier date.
A rush-seated ladder-back chair of a mass-produced type, post-First War, which has used the fashion set by Morrisian and country chairs for its design. Compared with architect-designed types, it does not quite come off because the back is a little too long and clumsy, with its square uprights set at an uncomfortable angle, for the turned front legs. Nevertheless, made in a pleasant birch or beech, a cheerful chair for ‘country’ style kitchens or dining rooms. 1920-1935

CHAIRS  Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and after : 1860-1930
The reader is not going to be bored by another harangue on the differences between the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau. That is done frequently throughout other sections of the book. Most of the chairs here will be known loosely as ‘art nouveau’ by the trade and many collectors. So be it.
We have illustrated a chair by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for information even though many would claim that it should not be in a Guide of this sort. We dispute this hotly as we explained in the Introduction. Although
chairs by Mackintosh are perhaps the province of Sotheby’s Belgravia and other fine art specialists when it comes to sale values, this book is used as much as an art reference work as it is a Price Guide. Besides, our
readers are not beyond finding a Mackintosh chair and an indication of value is what they are paying for.
A William Morris rush-seated ‘Sussex’ armchair as shown in the firm’s catalogues of the 1870s. This chair is also featured in the Country and Kitchen section but it is legitimately shown here because the middle-class
trendies who bought Morris & Co. furniture used these chairs for dining and occasional use, thus reflecting the genuine role that Morris & Co. played in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Many rush-seated chairs were
produced in emulation of this precedent. So there! 1865-1895
The use of rush seating seems to have been an almost morally-inspired move by the members of the Arts and Crafts Movement, as though rush seats and plain oak, with their `country’ connotations, were somehow
less decadent than stuffed Victorian upholstery. But then architects have always been puritans at heart. Add to that characteristic the socialist principles of William Morris and where do you land On something fairly hard, usually. It was Voysey and others, designing in what is known as the ‘vernacular’ tradition, i.e. in the native idiom  who produced chairs in clean lines made of plain oak and with seats of rush. This chair exhibits all these characteristics and the motifs, now associated with ‘art nouveau’, such as the heart shape, used by Voysey. 1890-1910
The celebrated design by A.H. Mackmurdo of the Century Guild. A chair with a high back and original upholstery with characteristic ‘heart’ shapes. A similar chair is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. c. 1885
Another chair by the
William Morris firm, in which the
tulip motif has been used in the inlaid panels in the back uprights. Again, based on a traditional form but this time the width of the back and the length of the arms is a bit attenuated. 1900-1912
A rush-seated chair by William Burges (q.v.) painted dark green, with painted decoration. It has been remarked (by Michael White-way) that the chair looks like something out of a modern Italian cafe. Possibly slightly pre-dates the William Morris chairs but at this point Burges and Morris were fairly close.
An oak rush-seated chair in a style going on from progressive-art nouveau towards something more modern, as evidenced by the arched cross-stretcher between the legs. The tapering back with the pierced ‘handle’ looks most uncomfortable. 1905-1915
More rush seating, more vertical discomfort. Very much a ‘clean’ archi-
tect’s design, the back following a model by William Birch. c. 1900
Plain oak, rush seat, but not particularly likely to have been made by a ‘known’ designer too stiff, a bit pinched. 1980-1910
Chair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh of Glasgow, now famous for the elongated shape, the low proportion of the seat and the strange motifs, weepy eyes, seagullsviewed-end-on and other Mackintosh
hallmarks. Before you mock or turn away, reflect that Mackintosh designed his furniture to make specific impacts in rooms of high proportion or in the now-famous cafes and tea rooms where other designs would have been unnoticed. His work now sells as ‘art’ rather than furniture, hence the price. 1890-1910
An art nouveau armchair with decorated back panel in characteristic floral design. The wavy arm supports are a ‘quaint’ feature. Possibly Liberty’s. May have had a rush seat subsequently covered over. c. 1900
A more commercial art nouveau chair with characteristic heart shapes cut through. The seat looks like a repair job.
Commercial oak chair with a rexine or leatherette seat cover fixed by brass studs. Owing something to ‘art nouveau’ styles due to the tapering back and legs ending in ‘block’ feet but fairly mass-produced in appearance. 1890-1910
Another oak art nouveau chair, quite good quality and stiffened for strength by the curved apron under the seat. An enduring design.
Arm and single chair of commercial production with drop-in rush seats.
c. 1900    Singles in sets, each 30  40 arm, each 50 00
A somewhat Scandinavian - looking chair with leather panels in the bobbined back and a leather seat. The panels are moulded with flowers and birds. Very ,arts and crafts’.
A lattice-back chair by Ernest Gimson. He was fond of the lattice back and many who admired him followed this feature. Note that the chair is deceptively simple; it is beautifully made and carefully thought out. The
box-and-ebony stringing lines inlaid in the back uprights are characteristic of the later Arts and Crafts Movement.
c.1915    Set of six 3,000  4,000 Photo: Courtesy Jeremy Cooper Ltd.
Another lattice back, this time by Ambrose Heal, in oak. A very traditional, almost 18th century chair. As it is a furnisher’s chair, the seat has been upholstered and covered in a contemporary material, rather than the
rush seat of Gimson type.
1910-1920    Set of six 2,000  2,500 Photo: Courtesy Michael Whiteway
More ‘Cotswold’ lattice back chairs, this time with leather seats and cabriole/pad foot front legs.
Three chairs with wooden seats and loose cushions from Percy Wells, c.1920, intended for ‘the small house’ or cottage. The design is an interesting blend of simple sub-18th century lower halves, combined with top
halves that are also derived from the 18th century and art furniture. Wells disapproved of all the modern chairs in “tens of thousands of cottages and small houses in the streets of our towns and cities”. He must have been busier than a church visitor. The only good examples, to him, were Windsors, stick, or ladderback types, but  wait for it  they were not ‘easy to dust’. Deplorably, people would think of Windsors as kitchen chairs and would hence buy stuffed-seat plush chairs with a little bad carving on the back and, still worse, polishing or varnishing the legs. Wells’ designs aimed at being strong, comfortable and easy to clean. They were made in any hard wood such as oak, elm, beech or birch, and were intended to strike a medium between ‘kitchen’ chairs and ‘flashy and flimsy’ modern chairs. They were pretty successful in meeting his objectives and survive in large numbers, with variants in the back design. Not far removed from the small oak Edwardian chairs illustrated earlier, but far better in proportion and design.
In sets, each 15  25 c. 1920
A mahogany ‘carving’ chair designed by Percy Wells c. 1920. The legs and arms are distinctly Sheraton in form but the ladder-back is much more forceful and owes something to the Heal-Gordon Russell school of
design.
Good fan-back dining chairs, of 18th century inspiration, of a type made in walnut, oak or mahogany. An honest simple design which is again thin below the seat  the front seat rail would look much better if it were
deeper. 1920-1930
An oak chair with a ’sunburst’ back  art deco is on the way. An otherwise unremarkable chair except for the thoughtful chamfering of the square front legs at the edges. 1910-1920
Lattice-back chairs of the 1920s, made in oak walnut or mahogany. Probably inspired by the Ernest Gimson-Gordon Russell school of lattice backs but in this case from Maurice Adams. Actually these examples by Adams are well-proportioned, if a bit severe, and their modernity is in an 18th century tradition, whereas Gimson, in one of his lattice-backs, terminated the square section front legs in little, scrolled feet, which must have set even his most ardent followers’ teeth on edge. 1920-1930
An interesting design of oak chair, showing the arm, or ,carver’ and single chair from a set. The back, with its simple cross-lattice, reflects influences going back to Russell, Gimson and even Godwin, but the arms are not particularly attractive. The aforementioned designers would not have approved either of the incised carving on the top rail and the front legs, introduced by a commercial manufacturer to give more popular appeal to a rather severe design. c.1930

CHAIRS  straight front legs, Victorian
Chairs with straight front legs in this section are generally dining chairs but, obviously, occasional chairs of this type exist as well. The variation in style is greater and most of the major schools of influence had their
effect on the dining chair. Indeed, the almost sacred aura connected with the business of eating made this imperative  dining rooms were sometimes larger and more carefully furnished than sitting rooms. This is
consistent with an ecclesiastical work ethic, which advised that one should be either working  out of the house or in a study  or eating, or sleeping but not idling about in a sitting room frittering away one’s time.
A mahogany chair of a design made from the 1830s to the end of the 1850s, from which this example dates. Its form clearly gave rise to many variations in back and legs but was essentially the basic upright Victorian
chair’s original. 1850-1860
Another mid-19th century design in oak which persisted in various alternatives until later in the century. C. and R. Light illustrate an upholstered chair with a similar back in their 1887 catalogue. The desire for a vaguely medieval form is evidently satisfied by the caned panels and carved decoration. 1840-1880
An oak chair, described as being ‘in the Eastlake manner’ due to the spindled arched gallery in the back, but with slab-like front legs connected to the back ones with rather nicely-turned, baluster-formed stretchers.
Acorn finials and ‘money’ pattern carving decorate the uprights. 1870-1890
Another oak chair with an arched spindled gallery in the back and a panel, strangely turned with concentric rings. The front legs are turned with a multiplicity of collars. Again, the influence of Eastlake, Talbert  any ,reformers’ will do. 1870-1890
Another oak chair with turned spindled galleries, of a type popular in the 1870s and 1880s. This is the armchair out of a dining set using single chairs of similar design. The triangular top rail is carved in bas-relief with floral scrolls and the leather covered upholstery has a Prince of Wales’ feathers motif on the back.
An interesting ‘near pair’ of chairs of very high quality. There is an aura of the Aesthetic Movement about the spindled galleries but the quality of turning and the latticing of the back of the right-hand version lead one to feel that one of the celebrated designers may have had a hand in them, Godwin perhaps, for there is an Anglo-Japanese feel to them, or even Norman Shaw, who designed similar chairs for Lord Armstrong’s house, Cragside. In fact, they are by Waterhouse, an architect who designed furniture for a manufacturer called Capeland, and was a close friend of Norman Shaw.
An occasional chair in mahogany, of a design found in manufacturers’ catalogues of the 1870s and 1880s with incised, or ,scratch’, decoration. Usually part of a suite of chaise-longue, armchairs and six singles, akin to balloon backs. 1870-1880
Another similar chair of lighter construction, incised with dot-dash grooving and inlaid with boxwood motifs.
A ‘Gothic’ design of oak chair made by Shoolbred. Not a happy termination to the top rail which leaves the outsides chopped off in mid air. 1880-1890
An oak dining chair, the ‘carver’ from a set of singles, of rather elaborately carved design using leaves and flowers, gadrooning and scrolls, intended to impress with the owner’s importance.
Another ‘grand’ chair in mahogany of semi-medieval design with leatherette or rexine covering to the upholstered parts. A popular style from the ‘Abbotsford’ influences onwards.
A late, straight, 19th century chair with a needlework covering and ring-incised, turned front legs.
Another simple, straight chair with a spindled gallery and ringed front legs.

CHAIRS  bentwood
Bentwood furniture was introduced to England by the Austrian, Michael Thonet, at the Great Exhibition of 1851. His rocking chair, shown here, is one of the most popular forms and has been much reproduced.
c. 1860
A bentwood armchair of Thonet production itemised as No. 20 in the Thonet catalogue. An elegant chair of pleasant proportions.
A plain bentwood chair, catalogued as No. 14 by Thonet, and his best selling item at nearly fifty million since 1859. As used in cafes throughout Europe. During the 1870s Thonet was said to be turning out 1,200 of this model daily  see Gillian Walkling, Antique Collecting, December 1979.
An unusual, high, bentwood office chair, adjustable in height and with a revolving seat. The circular seat is impressed with the pattern one associates with bentwood furniture. 1900-1920
CHAIRS  balloon back, Victorian
The balloon back chair was quite a perennially popular form and has been appreciated by collectors since the 1960s. It is worth reiterating that most balloon back chairs were not intended as dining chairs, which are
structurally heavier. The light, cabriole-leg balloon back was for occasional use in the drawing or sitting room.
A standard Victorian mahogany chair of a type made from the 1840s to the 1880s. Not actually a balloon back but showing how it could easily come about as a sequence of this design. The legs are a bit pumpkin-like and the top rail is heavy. 1840-1880
A mahogany balloon back chair with some carving appended under the top rail. It would probably have been wiser to restrain this sort of decoration to the lower rail, since the appended upper carving detracts.
A classic example of an oval walnut balloon back chair with a wool-work covered seat. The amount of carving on the back and on the ‘knee’ of the cabriole legs, which end in scrolled feet, is restrained and pleasant. 1850-1880
A late, turned-leg version of the balloon back in mahogany, with a central carved splat instead of a horizontal rail. The back is quite attractive but the legs, with their rather clumsy collars, the large upper ones carved with vaguely leaf forms, are not harmonious with the curves of the back.
A variant of the balloon back on cabriole legs but with Gothic influence in the shaping of the back. The dot-dash grooving in the flat surface and the sudden cranks in the shaping are tell-tale characteristics of the later varieties of Victorian rococo.
A mahogany variation on the principle, this time with a French Louis XV shape to the back, which is upholstered. Still
rococo enough for Victorian tastes and of a shape which is a perennial favourite. Sometimes known as ‘French Hepplewhite’. 1860-1880
An oval upholstered chair with a buttoned back, painted and decorated with carving. Again a French design which returned to popularity in the 1870s, conveying an impression of lightness and elegance whilst still being stronger structurally than the cabrioled balloon back. The oval back is perhaps a little heavy.

American Chairs About 1890-1940 - Art nouveau, Art Deco, Crafts Movement
Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the centre of the furniture industry, with Chicago as a breeding ground of reformist designers including Frank Lloyd Wright who stressed the need for good furniture that could be mass-produced with machinery and sold at reasonable prices.
In the 1890s there was a reaction against the historicism of the past half-century. American designers absorbed the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement (see p. 68) and added touches from art nouveau (see p. 196), to which style C. Rohlf’s elaborately carved chairs, around 1898, were, perhaps, nearest.
In 1894, D.W. Kendall designed for the Phoenix Furniture Co. an oak armchair with cane seat and flat arms that proved popular well into the 1920s. Simply-made chairs, sold off from a Spanish mission in California, inspired J.P. McHugh, who worked in oak and ash; E. Hubbard at the Ryecroft Community, East Aurora; Gustav Stickley at his Craftsman Workshops, Eastwood. Comfort was catered for with club easy chairs and deeply sprung ‘Davenport’ sofas.
Following World War 1, industrial design created the cantilevered, tubular steel chair, but a public preference for something glamorous was catered for with Art Moderne (see p. 275) which, at its best, combined traditional craftsmanship with modern streamlining. The low sofa and easy chair with deeply
Right rocking chair, New York, about 1890.
Oak reclining chair, designed by Frank Lloyd I right, about 1902.
sprung seats and backs, padded arms and minimal feet, took the term ‘fully upholstered’ to the point where woodwork was seldom visible. A sofa designed by the Spanish surrealist Dali, inspired by the lips of the American sex symbol, Mae West, is a classic example of the high Art Moderne style.
Crafts Movement: Native hardwoods such as oak, ash. Cane, rush for- Folk weaves for upholstery.
Industrial Design: Tubular metal, mainly steel. Serviceable upholstery fabrics.
Art Moderne: Exotic woods and expensive textiles.
Crafts Movement: Construction frankly exposed to view. Some makers, influenced by Wright, abandoned conventional joints in favour of screwing sections together.
Industrial Design: When steel tubes took the place of timber, traditional methods were supplanted by metalwork techniques such as welding, bending.
Art Moderne: Traditional joints - mortise-and-tenon, dovetail - though often cut by machine.
Crafts Movement: Exposed construction sometimes exploited as decoration, for instance butterfly joints and dowel ends stained by Rohlfs in contrasting colours. Carving was used by some craftsmen, but rejected by the puritanical.
Industrial Design: Puritanism of a slightly different kind saw decoration as superfluous, but often achieved - almost by accident - a decorative effect from elegant lines and fine proportions.
Art Moderne: Essentially a decorative style, exploiting every available means to achieve its ends - disastrously so at the lower end of the market.
Crafts Movement: Veneers little used. Coloured stains, green expecially, as well as the usual browns. Varnish on cheaper lines, wax on up-market products.
Industrial Design: Chromium plating on tubular steel. Cellulose sprays on 1930s woodwork.
Art Moderne: Veneered panels often used to face the fronts of arms on sofas and easy chairs upholstered in futuristic patterns popular in the jazz age.
Best buys: Mission chairs, especially Roycroft, Stickley - but go for good craftsmanship rather than labels. Many opportunities in Art Moderne seating that needs re-upholstery.
CRAFT MOVEMENT
Craft Movement chairs are often difficult to date because some designs, such as Kendall’s, remained in production for 30 years. Chairs by Stickley are often labelled and can still be bought at reasonable prices.

American Chairs About 1790-1810
Mahogany armchairs in Hepplewhite style, Massachusetts, about 1790-1810.
The publication of Robert Adam’s neo-classical designs was delayed by the War of Independence, but by 1790, those of Hepplewhite and Sheraton were available and being interpreted by chair makers, notably John Aitken of Philadelphia (where the Journeyman Cabinet and Chairmakers’ Book of Prices appeared in 1794-5); John Seymour of Boston; Samuel McIntire of Salem; Duncan Phyfe of New York (though the latter was more subject to French Directoire influence - see p. 19S). From 1795, Baltimore became a centre for furniture that included ‘fancy’ (painted) chairs.
The Federal style is identified with the first phase of neo-classicism.
Side-chairs: I Rectangular, oval or shield-shaped backs, the splats pierced and carved; legs straight and tapered, often terminating in spade’ feet. 2 Square-framed backs with a series of vertical bars replacing the splat; straight, tapered legs. 3 After 1805, square-framed backs enclosing straight or X-shaped bars. Phyfe also used X-shaped supports in place of conventional legs for chairs and settees.
`Fancy’ chairs: Legs socketed into the seat frame, painted panels in the backs.
Easy chairs: stuffed backs and seats, tapered legs; Martha Washington chair with high back, low seat and open arms a speciality of New Hampshire.
Frame settees: Chair-back types with oval or shield shapes conjoined, on tapered legs, open arms.
Fully upholstered settees (sofas):`Camel’ backs rising to a hump, scrolled arms.
Country chairs and settees: Windsor types in greater variety and more elegant than English. Some turnings simulate bamboo.
Slat-backs include the early rocker, said to have been invented by Benjamin Franklin around 1770, but becoming general during Federal period and developing into a national institution. The Shaker communities produced two main types - the light-weight ‘Sister’s’ rocker, and the heavier ‘Brother’s’ version with mushroom tops to the arm-supports.
West Indian mahogany the principal wood, but a wide mixture of native timbers used for seat furniture meant to be painted, for instance a set of 24 oval-backed maple chairs made in Philadelphia 1796 for Elias Derby of Salem.
Chairmakers had to perfect existing methods to meet the exacting demands of the neoclassical style with its emphasis on slim proportions and purity of line. Mortise-and-tenon joints had to be cut skilfully to create the fragile oval, heart and shield shapes of the backs.
The fragility of Federal chairs has necessitated legitimate repairs to many, but this has often led to abuse. An incomplete set is knocked apart and reassembled with a number of new parts copied from the originals. Thus, three chairs magically become six - each of them 50 per cent genuine; the new parts, if detected, are explained away as replacements. Look for differences in colour, texture, craftsmanship and finish.
Shield-back chair, taken apart for repair or cannibalization.
Delicate carving of neo-classical motifs: urns, swags, paterae, formally arranged flowers. Some craftsmen practised what amount to signatures; for example, Samuel McIntire of Salem carved a trailing vine down legs of shield-back chairs. Sparing use of satinwood inlay.
Mahogany was varnished to fill the grain, sanded and waxed until the early 1800s, when French polishing was introduced. ‘Fancy’ chairs were painted in polychrome, either with conventional neo-classical motifs or, in the case of the panel-back types produced in Baltimore and New York, with romantic landscapes. Windsor chairs were often painted black or green.
Heavy demand for sets of dining-chairs keeps prices high; collect odd ones of similar design to make a harlequin set  more fun and much cheaper.
American Chairs About 1810-1840
Federal mahogany dining hair, about 1815.
Following the War of 1812, American furniture was more influenced by the French Empire style than by English Regency.
The American Empire style (see p. 275) introduced the second phase of neo-classicism an academic approach to Ancient Greek and Roman shapes as well as ornament.
Side-chairs: Greek klismos type with sabre legs, favoured in Philadelphia; less so in New York, with the exception of a few makers, in particular the highly successful Duncan Phyfe (who had changed his name from the more prosaic Fife).
`Roman’ versions with turned front legs, more popular in New York. James Madison, President at the time of the War of 1812, ordered a set designed by the architect Benjamin Latrobe for the White House.
Left, painted ‘fancy’ chair, Connecticut, about 1820-1850. Right, early-19thC rocking chair.
Hitchcock chairs: Vernacular versions of late Sheraton on turned, slightly splayed front legs with wide seats, caned or rushed  factory-produced from 1820 by Lambert Hitchcock at Barkhamsted (now Rivington), Con.
Boston rockers from 1835: Purpose-built with rolled seats and arms to correspond with the action, as distinct from slat-backs mounted on rockers.
Couches (chaises longues), ‘lounges’: Updated versions of the day-bed, based on the Greek couch, with scrolled head, asymmetrical back and either sabre or turned feet; more popular around 1820 than the settee or sofa.
Carved mahogany settle, New York, about 1800-1810.
Upholstered settees (sofas): Similar in line to the couch but with symmetrical back and scrolled arms.
Window seats: Stools with arms but no back, on high legs or scrolled ‘dolphin’ supports, fashionable from 1825.
Mahogany, maple and exotic woods for visible parts of sophisticated seat furniture; beech for upholstered seat frames; ash, beech, birch, oak, hickory, juniper, pine, elm for Windsor and other ‘country’ types. A developing textile industry made home-produced, luxurious upholstery fabrics more widely available.
During the Colonial period, apart from some not very successful attempts at sill< production, mainly in Georgia, the weaving of expensive fabrics had not been encouraged, the colonies being regarded by Britain as a profitable market for manufactured goods. Few antique chairs, couches and sofas retain their original coverings anyway, but at the time, duty-free fabrics put good upholstery within the reach of a large public, and the quantity of seat furniture now surviving is that much greater.
Sound, traditional craftsmanship until 1830, growing reliance on machinery thereafter, leading to decline in craftsmanship. Backs of side-chairs were constructed in three different ways:
Top rails: top left, turned bar between uprights top right, flat rail tenoned between uprights: above, flat top rail (tablet) set against uprights and dowelled.
Turned or hand-carved rounded bar as top rail, set between uprights, and socketed into them. 2 A flat top rail, plain carved or inlaid, set between uprights and tenoned into them. 3 Flat top rail (’tablet’) set against the uprights and dowelled into them. Although nearest to Greek original type, this is the most prone to damage.
Chairs: Pierced and fretted lyre backs; brass inlay. Mainly stringing (thin strips to accentuate the line), but also complex patterns in top rails.
Sofas: Carving of cornucopias as faces to arms, bold scrolls as supports.
Increased use of veneers on seat rails of chairs. Hardwoods French-polished. Carved details picked out in gilt. Painted decoration of neo-classical motifs, flowers, fruit and landscapes on chairs of Hitchcock type.
Sabre-legs usually dearer than turned. Armchairs good as desk chairs and as extra seating  elegant but comfortable. Never buy a chair (as many do) without sitting in it and checking for comfort, unless your interest in it is only as an object to look at.
American Chairs About 1840-1890
Settee from a suite of Renaissance revival furniture, about 1870.
With the development of railways, the established centres of production in the East lost ground to Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cincinatti, Ohio. From 1840, trade catalogues began to appear. A.J. Downing’s The Architecture of Country Houses (I st. ed. 1850) and Charles Eastlake’s Hints on Household Taste (originally English but published in Boston, 1872) were also influential.
Not one style but many, seemingly in conflict yet melding to produce an American flavour from ingredients similar to quasi-historic revivals current in Europe: Classical (’pillar and scroll’); ‘Modern French’) (rococo curves, followed by Second Empire opulence); baroque (called ‘Elizabethan’ but heavily reliant on twist legs); Renaissance (prominent at Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, 1876, with emphasis on machine-worked, trumpet-shaped turnings); Gothic (pointed arches in chair backs, cluster column legs) vied with a Japanese craze in 1870 (bamboo, real or simulated, asymmetrical frets). From this medley, it was the ‘Modern French’ styles that most affected seat furniture.
Exotic hardwoods such as rosewood, imported in growing quantities. Steam-bent, moulded laminates patented by J.H.Belter, active in New York from 1844. Cast iron used for garden and office chairs, from 1850. Moulded papier miche chairs and settees produced at Litchfield, Connecticut from 1850. Printed chintzes and cretonnes fashionable for deep-buttoned upholstery. Natural branches and roots utilized for rustic seats. Grotesque chairs assembled from buffalo horns and stag antlers.
Side-chairs: Rococo; balloon backs, open or padded. French form of cabriole legs, i.e. the under-side of leg joins seat frame with concave curve, as opposed to convex curve of 18thC English and American type. 2 ‘Louis XVI’  in reality Napoleon 111; oval back, open or padded; turned, tapered legs.
Sofa: chaise longue; love seat (sofa for two); tete-a-tete (two seats facing in opposite directions); sociable (three or four seats facing in varied directions); all heavily upholstered, usually deep-buttoned to hold padding in place over spiral springs laced to webbed platform. Many with show-wood (exposed) frames; cabriole or turned legs on castors.
Rococo rosewood settee, New York, about 1855.
‘French’ form of cabriole leg, concave curve at knee; left, American 18thC cabriole leg, convex curve.
Carved scrolls and flowers in exaggerated version of Louis XV style. Belter’s moulded, laminated wood frames elaborately pierced and hand-carved, with high crests to chairs and sofas  a style imitated in cast iron. The lavish American version of plush Second Empire (Napoleon 111) style out-frenchified the French, the turned and fluted legs hidden behind a curtain of fringe.
Woodwork varnished, French polished or ebonised with details in gilt. Travesties of Eastlake’s simple designs, purporting to be Gothic, incised with geometric patterns and ebonised. Black japanned papier mch painted with flowers and scenes in brilliant colours.
Modern French style decorative, decadent, and, some think, delightful; can be bought cheaply in tatty condition. Cast-iron garden seats worth investigating.
The cult of collecting ‘Early American’ furniture was already established by around 1880, but the supply, even then, was inadequate. In 1884, the Journal of Cabinet Making and Upholstery reported that the making of antiques has become a modern industry. These copies have now had over 100 years to mellow. The quality of many is high but the proportions, when compared with authenticated specimens, are often wrong and the decoration is overdone.

AMERICAN CHAIRS About 1620-1690
Stools: Maple, oak, pine.
Wainscot chairs: Oak frames, pine panels in backs and seats.
Stick chairs: Maple, ash, oak frames; rush seats.
Peg-leg: Legs are turned or, more often, roughly rounded with a draw-knife, and driven through holes bored in the seat, so that their upper ends project very slightly above the surface; the fixing is tightened by driving a small wedge from above into the end grain of the leg.
An oak ‘Carver’ chair, about 1650.
Most of the seat furniture surviving from this period dates from after 1650 and chiefly comprises stools, chairs and armchairs.
Stools: I Fairly crude variations of the milking stool or ‘peg-leg’ type. 2 Joyned’ or joint-stools, also called coffin stools because a pair was often pressed into service to form a bier.
Chairs: I Rare, early ‘wainscot’ types with panelled backs and seats have turned legs, but were made by joiners. 2′Stick’chairs made entirely by turners. The Brewster armchair has spindles under seat, the Carver does not. 3 ‘Slat-backs’, also stick type, have shaped slats set between the uprights of the backs, and turned legs.
Long benches of this type were much less common in America than in England and Holland, and should be accepted as of American origin only if the evidence is very strong indeed.
Peg-leg stool with wedge.
Joined stools and chairs: Seat rails and stretchers have tenons cut at their ends which slot into mortises in the square sections, top and bottom, of the turned legs; the joint is secured with pegs driven through holes to penetrate the tenons (not to be confused with peg-leg construction, see above). The seat is similarly pegged to the seat rail.
Turned leg, mortised to receive tenons.
Stick: Stretchers, turned or rounded by hand, are driven into holes bored in the legs. Shaped slats, thin enough to be bent to curve outwards, are set in mortises cut in uprights of the back. In early armchairs, the arms are turned bars that slot into holes in the uprights and the arm supports. No pegging needed.
Wainscot chairs: Carved top rails occur only rarely, e.g. one at the Winterthur.
Stick chairs: Varied turnings include mushroom’ finials to arm supports. Slats shaped to several different patterns.
Oiled and waxed, varnished or painted.
Joined stools and wainscot chairs now too expensive to sit on. Peg-leg stools difficult to date, but good for a gamble. Stick and slat-back chairs can still turn up unexpectedly at bargain prices.
American Chairs   About 1690-1725
Black-painted William Mary banister-back armchair, about 1710.
American interpretations of the European and English (Charles II and William and Mary) baroque style are expressed in several new types of seating.
Slat-back chairs (see p. 293) continued to be made in great variety. New types included: square-backed Cromwell chairs with turned front legs, the seats and back upholstered, before 1700; a small number of high-backed chairs in the Charles II (Anglo-Flemish) style, with caned backs and seats, turned or scrolled legs, the armchairs with ‘ram’s horn’ arms, before 1700. Corner chairs with turned members and bowed backs, also in small quantities, from 1700. Banister-back chairs, from 1700 (see DECORATION). The day-bed  a couch for lounging on  before 1700 (see CONSTRUCTION). The New York waggon seat from 1720 (also made in other regions, such as Connecticut, Massachusetts); a crude prototype of the chair-back settee that served as seating in the house and, when lashed to a wagon, converted it into a makeshift carriage.
WAGGON SEATS
The waggon seat continued to be made well into the 19thC. Many offered for sale, though not fakes, are not as old as they are sometimes claimed to be. The hard use to which they were put means that early examples are seldom in pristine condition.
Replacement stool seats
Many experts (though not all) reject stools where the seat is secured by pegs driven in at the corners so that they penetrate the end grain of the legs, threatening to split them; such positioning, it is argued, occurs only when the original seat has been replaced clumsily.
Pegs on joint stool. The peg on the right is correctly placed.
Frames: Oak, walnut, beech, ash, maple. Slats: Hickory or ash (easily bent to shape when still green).
Turned spindles: juniper.
Upholstery (for Cromwell’ chairs): Leather or ‘Turkey work’  a hand-knotted imitation of Turkish carpets.
Caning (for baroque chairs and day-beds): Split and woven rattan cane.
A large Turkey work Carpet for the table and two doz. arm’d Cain Chairs are mentioned in the journals of the Burgesses of Virginia, 1702-12, in reference to the furnishing of the Council Chamber of the Capitol (first building) at Williamsburg.
High-backed baroque chairs: Front legs, whether turned or scrolled, often socketed into a flat seat-frame, instead of being jointed with mortise-and-tenon; likewise, the cresting rail of the back may be set on to uprights, instead of between them.
The day-bed: Essentially a chair with elongated seat and additional legs; the back, or bed-head, often hinged and fitted with a ratchet for adjustment.
Baroque chairs: Members turned, cresting rails arched and carved, ‘Spanish’ (also known as ‘Braganza’) feet shaped and carved.
Cromwell chairs: Varied turnings; ‘barley twists’ (spirals) were known as Crosswicks after the district near
Philadelphia where this speciality was practised.
Spiral twist leg.
Banister chairs: The back composed of split banisters (also known as balusters), produced by sawing the wood in half, lengthwise, lightly glueing the two halves together, turning on the lathe to the desired shape, then splitting them apart again. They are then set into the upper and lower rails of the chair-back with their flat sides facing inwards, so that no protuberances make for discomfort.
Split banisters: right, length of timber sawn in half, far right, halves reassembled for turning on lathe.
Right, rounded face; far right, flat face.
Baroque types often stained black and varnished, or japanned in imitation of oriental lacquer. Rural types oiled and waxed or painted.
Cromwell, high-backed and corner chairs, also day-beds, rare and highly priced. Best buy: individual slat-backs.
William & Mary maple day-bed, about 1725.
front leg socketed into seat frame.
Growing wealth created a demand for comfort, even luxury. Between 1725 and 1760, Boston alone gave employment to 38 chair-makers and 23 upholsterers. Regional differences became more marked in the work of Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Newport - the chief centres; for instance, New England side-chairs were taller and thinner than those of New York,
Attributions in this period are made by comparing examples with makers’ labels, for example William Savery of
Philadelphia: but names are sometimes bandied about for no better reason than to boost the price.
American Chairs  1725-1790
Left, Queen Anne walnut side-chair New York, Queen Anne walnut.
The Queen Anne style - merging, from 1760 into Chippendale - emphasised the S-shaped curve of the cabriole leg, a rounded seat and a swan-neck back with shaped centre splat (’fiddle back’) - a feature seen in many country-made chairs still retaining turned legs. In more sophisticated examples, the splats are ergonomically designed to suit the human spine.
Right, Chippendale mahogany side-chair, Philadelphia, about 1765-1770.
In the Chippendale period, the splat was fretted and pierced, and the cabriole leg slowly gave way to the Marlboro’ - straight, square in section but chamfered on the inside angle. Easy chairs have draught-excluding wings; a child’s version in solid timber has a hole in the seat to hold a pot.
In the 1780s, Daniel Trotter of Philadelphia was probably the maker of ladder-back chairs - sophisticated versions in mahogany of the country slat-back, with shaped and pierced slats and Marlboro’ legs. Country chairs of Windsor type, made with spindles of green timber socketed into bent frames, succeeded earlier stick types. Windsor settees were an alternative to the settle, high or low in the back, boarded or panelled.
Sophisticated settees; two main types:
Above, Chippendale soft, Philadelphia, 1775. The ‘chair-back’ or ‘frame’, conceived as two or three chair-backs conjoined.
Day-beds continued to be popular in the Queen Anne period, with fashionable splatbacks and cabriole legs.
Native maple and cherrywood substituted for walnut, the most fashionable wood 1725-50, and for mahogany, 1750-90. Upholstery materials ranged from leather and local worsted cloth to imported damasks, velvets and brocades. Stools, promoted to the parlour, had seats that, whether- or drop-in, were often covered in needlework made by the lady of the house.
Craftsmen did not at first trust the strength of cabriole legs with no underframing, and until 1740, many  in New England especially  continued to be united with turned stretchers.
As a means of joining the cabriole leg to the front of a curved seat, the mortise-and-tenon joint could be made to work only at the risk of weakening it, as too much of it had to be cut away to achieve the shape. Some makers compensated for this weakness by fitting a block inside. Others used a halving joint (a half-thickness of the side rail overlapping and glued to a half-thickness of the front rail). A cavity was then cut in the joint to receive the square at the top of the leg, shaped to a dovetail or tenon.
After 1760, the balloon shape of the seat was discarded in favour of an angular one, and in mahogany chairs of the Chippendale period, a conventional mortise-and-tenon joint is usual.
In Philadelphia in the mid-18thC, the regular method of joining the side-rails to the rear uprights was by means of a through-tenon, secured with pegs driven through holes in the side-rail. If the ends of the pegs and the through-tenon are visible, this is a sign of Philadelphian origin.
Queen Anne: Shells carved on knees of cabriole legs and often at the centre of the cresting rail which, in many New York examples, is pierced with two spaces flanking the shell. Feet were plain pads, carved lion paws or claw-and-ball. The Queen Anne style survived in Newport to the end of the Colonial period.
Chippendale: Splats fretted and pierced. Marlboro’ legs headed by Chinese fretted brackets, but cabriole legs with claw-and-ball feet persisted; in New York, they were carved with foliage down to the feet.
Queen Anne: Walnut veneers often used in splats and seat rails. Others with japanned decoration, usually in gold on a black ground.
Chippendale: Mahogany seldom used in veneer form on chairs. Walnut and mahogany surfaces rubbed down with sand or brick-dust, varnished, rubbed down again and wax-polished.
cabriole-legged types tend to fetch more money than Marlboro’, but much depends on detail. Windsor chairs made in great quantity and variety, but not cheap.
CORRECT CLAWS
In a well-carved claw-and-ball foot, the claw should appear to be grasping the ball with the strength of an eagle clutching its prey  a feature naturalistically rendered in Philadelphia, where the ball is flatter than in the rather square New York version. Newport claws have been unflatteringly described as limp. The differences are sufficiently marked to be acceptable criteria when making attributions.
Claw) and ball tool from a Chippendale side:-chair, about 1765-70.
CABRIOLE LEGS
Wing chairs with cabriole legs tend to command higher prices than ones with straight legs. Many of the latter type (A) have been glamorized by sawing off the legs and replacing them with cabriole legs (B), using dowels and/or hefty screws. The head of a screw may be visible but is more likely to have been countersunk and camouflaged with stopping wax. Dowels are out of sight, but if a flap of the upholstery is carefully lifted (C), it is possible to prove whether the cabriole leg and the square above it are of one continuous piece of wood, as they should be. If they are not, a human hair, pulled from your head and held taut, will penetrate the join (marked with arrows) that should not be there.
Wing chair with substituted cabriole legs.

CHAIRS About 1815-1860
Above, an Austrian Biedermeier sofa, about 1820,
french Charles X mahogany ,armchair, about 1825.
Biedermeier (post-Empire) style in Austria, Germany, Scandinavia, 1815-35. Chairs – mostly without arms – have square-section legs, straight or slightly splayed, and low backs with top rails projecting at sides beyond uprights, enclosing lyre, vase, dolphin or triple reed motifs, or simple horizontal rails. Balloon-back chairs, 1835-50. Armchairs ousted by settees, mainly Empire in style with sabre or cornucopia-shaped feet; turned feet after 1830. One type has compartments in arms for magazines. Highly original designs with serpentine supports by Danhauser of Vienna.
In 1830, Thonet of Boppard, Prussia, begins experiments that lead to factory in Vienna producing bentwood chairs, rocking-chairs, stools, settees, at first Biedermeier in style but developing unique curvilinear character by 1850 – still in production. In Poland, Above, French Louis Philippe rosewood sofa with neo-classical marquetry decoration.
`Simmler’ style (named after Warsaw family firm founded in 18thC) influenced by Biedermeier, French and English styles). In Russia, upholstery embroidered with flowers.
France retains many Empire elements following restoration of monarchy in 1815 (Restauration) e.g. la meridienne – couch with scrolled ends, one lower than the other; fauteuil a gondole – armchair with rounded
Russian Karelian birch chair in Biedermeier style, about 1820.
prow-like back. Gothic revival about 1840 adopts chair-backs with pointed arches, cluster columns in troubadour style, otherwise known as cathedrals when applied to prie dieuxwith low sloping seat. Rococo chairs and settees in Louis XV style reproduced.
Italy continues Empire style, toys with Gothic revival; burgeoning nationalism favours Dantesque chairs and stools on X-supports, echoing Italian Renaissance.
Spain follows semi-classical ‘Fernandino’ phase at mid-century with full-blooded revival of baroque (’Isabellino’ style).
Pale woods (bois clairs) — cherry, bird’s eye maple — fashionable until return about 1840 to mahogany, ebony, oak, walnut. Wide range of upholstery fabrics.
Steam-driven machinery makes for cheaper production, but mainly confined to sawing boards and veneers. Most joints still cut by hand, except in large factories. Thonet’s patented method of steaming birch rods into curved shapes makes mortise-and-tenon joints obsolete for his chairs; e.g. No. 14 in his range is composed of six sections screwed together; components exported for assembly at destination.
Biedermeier: Carving of swans, dolphins. Ebonised classical columns applied to fronts of settees.
Restauration: Marquetry in dark woods on light grounds. Fewer ormolu mounts.
Troubadour (Cathedrals): Carving and piercing of Gothic motifs.
Dantesque: Carving in Renaissance style. Rococo revival: Carving in Louis XV style.
Biedermeier: Polished, never stained. Restauration: French polishing. Some
legs of seat furniture veneered. Troubadour: Oak left natural or waxed. Dantesque: Walnut sometimes ‘antiqued’ with black stain.
Rococo revival: Painted and/or gilded.
Sets of Biedermeier chairs expensive but odd ones often very reasonably priced. Anything in bois clairs is now appreciably dearer than the mahogany equivalent.
Chair-seats may be either ’stuffed over’, the upholstery being fixed to the frame of the chair with small tacks, or ‘drop-in’, the seat fitting within, but not fixed to, the frame. If, as often happens, a drop-in seat is re-upholstered without removing the existing cover, the fit is usually too tight; this may result in loosening of mortiseand-tenon joints, leading to splits.
A Napoleon 111 mahogany side-chair in Gothic style.
19thC Alpine walnut chair, the back in the form of grotesque mask.
CHAIRS About 1850-1890
Below, rococo revival sofa with elaborate carving, about 1860.
Le confidant, legs normally covered by deep fringe.
crapaud’ (vernacular name for fully-upholstered armchair). All heavily stuffed, deep-buttoned and with long fringes hiding their turned feet.
Rococo revival fauteuil With cartouche-shaped back and cabriole legs.
Revivals of historic styles abounded, but were often interpreted in new ways, so despite all the slavish copying that went on, most seat furniture of this period can hardly be mistaken for any other.
Rococo revival chairs combine cabriole legs with baroque twists, while chaises longues and sofas have backs with curves bolder than anything known in 18thC.
From 1850s, Napoleon III (Second Empire) side chairs have tapered legs derived from Louis XVI types, but turnings are more pronounced and ringed with gilt metal headings. A suite comprises sofa, two armchairs, four or six side-chairs with exposed frames, often ebonised, the legs with gilt flutes. Balloon backs, familiar since 1830s, remain popular.
napoleon III chair with turned, tapered and fluted legs.
New types include le confident (S-shaped sofa — occupants whisper to each other while facing in opposite directions); le canape capitonne (prototype of modern settee, with sausage-shaped arms); le pouf (circular stool): la chauffeuse capitonne tonne a roulettes (low, armless chair on wheels for drawing up to fire); Ve
‘Sociable” used at centre of salon, about 1860.
Mahogany, walnut, beech for side chairs and armchairs with exposed woodwork, beech for frames of fully upholstered types. Horsehair and flock for stuffing. Steel for spiral springs. Bamboo for chairs in oriental styles. Rich upholstery fabrics, especially plush (wool velvet as distinct from silk).
Apart from mass-produced, screwed-together Thonet products (see CHAIRS about 1815 to 1860, p. 227), traditional methods assisted by machinery are employed for seats with exposed woodwork. For frames of fully upholstered types, dowels increasingly used in place of mortise-and-tenon joints, and towards end of century for chairs with show-wood (exposed) frames. Most important development is spiral springing, first invented in Germany, patented in Britain in 1828 but not in general use until about 1850.
Revivals: Carving, sometimes rather coarse, of motifs more or less appropriate to the style imitated.
Contemporary: Turning, carving, fluting of legs, marquetry on top rails. Main decorative feature is rich upholstery and fancy trimmings, especially fringes.
Much exposed woodwork ebonised, otherwise French polished.
Taste swings periodically for and against ebonised furniture. If Napoleon III types are bought in a bear market, complete or part salon suites in need of re-upholstery can be picked up at bargain prices.
EBONISED SEATS
The fashion for ebonised seats spread to Britain in the 1860s and it is often difficult to be sure about the country of origin. A useful but not infallible guide is that most Continental (especially French and
Italian) examples have small leather-covered wheels; English have brown or white porcelain castors. English castors, however, were imported in bulk by furniture manufacturers in Germany. It is fairly safe to conclude that chairs of this period with porcelain castors are not French, and that ones with leather wheels are not English – unless, of course, they have been replaced.