A Mahogany Sheraton Style Single Chair - Country Sheraton Design Armchair  -  Chair of the Early Regency Period

A Sheraton design chair of considerable workmanship. Many such chairs are to be found painted in white and gilt or otherwise having painted decoration on birch or beech wood. In the main the painted versions are
more highly sought after than the mahogany ones, which makes for higher prices. Note the turned and fluted legs. The arm uprights have spiral reeding.
A Sheraton design arm and single chair in mahogany. The uprights and arms are reeded, which lightens the square solidarity of design. Note the vase shaped turned arm supports and the way in which the broad top
rail is panelled. The legs and back uprights are reeded; this effect is also carried round the panel in the wider top back rail.
A simpler Sheraton design with tapering legs normally made in mahogany. The arm uprights are of straightforward turning without the spiral reeding which adds greatly to price. An elegant and simple style which remained popular for many years.
Late 18th century arm and single chairs. Note the broad top rail in the back, the panel veneered in figured mahogany. The spiral twist middle rail is a feature of quality particularly important in value assessment of these chairs. The legs are turned, without any fluting. The arms of the elbow chair sweep forward and curve down to meet the line of the front legs. The proportion of these admirable smaller dining chairs makes them
extremely popular in the modern home,
Another late Georgian c. 1810 mahogany armchair, something of a combination of Sheraton and prevailing styles. The wide top back rail is veneered with a panel of figured mahogany and the centre rail is elegantly
reeded. The turning of the front legs and the arm supports, with the popular vase shape, is lightly and gracefully done. Occasionally brass stringing will be found around the inlaid back panel, which adds to the
decorative value.
A mahogany Sheraton style single chair with Gothic arching in the design of the back. The legs are tapered on the inside edge only and are reeded, as is the back. An elegant and simple chair.
A mahogany armchair of the late 18th century. An excellent example of a good quality chair, as evidenced in the reeding and lightness of design of the back. The turned legs are a little clumsier and have hints of later
things to come.
Country Sheraton design armchair in mahogany with bowed solid seat. A satisfying and simple country design of which many were made to meet the popular demand caused by the town versions.
A simpler Sheraton design with tapering legs normally made in mahogany. The arm uprights are of straightforward turning without the spiral reeding which adds greatly to price. An elegant and simple style which remained popular for many years.
Late 18th century arm and single chairs. Note the broad top rail in the back, the panel veneered in figured mahogany. The spiral twist middle rail is a feature of quality particularly important in value assessment of these chairs. The legs are turned, without any fluting. The arms of the elbow chair sweep forward and curve down to meet the line of the front legs. The proportion of these admirable smaller dining chairs makes them
extremely popular in the modern home.
Another late Georgian c. 1810 mahogany armchair, something of a combination of Sheraton and prevailing styles. The wide top back rail is veneered with a panel of figured mahogany and the centre rail is elegantly
reeded. The turning of the front legs and the arm supports, with the popular vase shape, is lightly and gracefully done. Occasionally brass stringing will be found around the inlaid back panel, which adds to the
decorative value.
Proportion and design  Figure of wood and inlays
A country Sheraton single chair in mahogany with straight legs and solid seat. The square back with vertical rails owes much to the popularity of Sheraton styles, otherwise the design comes from a straightforward 18th century construction.
A rather heavier Sheraton style mahogany country chair with drop-in seat. The broad top rail of the back has been made slightly wider than the back uprights which detracts slightly from the elegance of the style.
Otherwise the construction and tapering legs are typical.
An elegant chair of the early Regency period, with caned back and seat. The outward turn of the simulated bamboo legs is most effective and the balance is completed by the curved top rail. The seat rail and the top
rail are inlaid with stringing in the approved classical manner. Many of these chairs were made of birch or beech and then ebonised or painted. They are almost inevitably very expensive.
Lightness and elegance of design

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.

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: BACK-STOOLS, FARTHINGALES, CANED AND OTHER 17THC SEATS
About 1615-1700
Typical upholstered farthingale chair.
The 17thC saw the widespread introduction of the single chair, referred to at the time as a `back-stool’, literally a stool with a back. Fixed upholstery sometimes replaced loose cushions and after 1660 woven canework introduced from the East Indies  was fashionably seen on the seats, and often the backs too, of most chairs.
Chairs were increasingly made in sets, comprising both arm and single chairs.
Continental (and particularly Dutch) influence was strong on all furniture. Under William and Mary, chair design was greatly influenced by the Huguenot designer Daniel Marot (p. 200).
Three most common types were:
Farthingales: Fashionable about 1615-1660. The name refers to the gap between the seat and back which presumably allowed women wearing hooped farthingale skirts to sit in relative comfort. These were probably
the earliest type of back-stool. At first, they had four matching turned legs joined by four straight and low stretchers. Upholstered seat; low, upholstered rectangular back with uprights covered in same material. Before long, the front legs only were turned back, the back legs being plain, square-sectioned, and slightly splayed. Back raked. Baluster turning replaced about 1650 by bobbin and twist.
Oak dining-chairs: About 1650-1700, many of ‘country’ appearance, but not necessarily of provincial manufacture.
Yorkshire/ Derbyshire chairs, mid to late-18thC.
Regional variations though, the most distinctive being the ‘Yorkshire and Derbyshire’ chair. Despite its name, made in other areas too. Generally square seats, rimmed around the edge. Back with vertical or horizontal slats, sometimes carved. Often a shaped or scrolling top rail. Turned legs at front. After 1660, a new stretcher arrangement became apparent. The plain back, and turned or carved front stretchers, were set higher than before with two stretchers at either side. This type was quickly superseded in fashionable London (and soon elsewhere) by:
canework chairs: First introduced to Britain about 1665. Inexpensive and common, made in large numbers for all types of houses. At first, a squarish seat and back with large gap between. Widely spaced canework. All uprights and stretchers fashionably twist, occa-sionally bobbin, turned. Back uprights ending in finials. Flat arms, slightly shaped. ‘H’ stretchers introduced with additional and higher stretcher at front and back.
In 1670, the height of the back increased. The back top rail was formed as carved cresting, complemented by deep, carved front stretcher. Framing of the back also carved. Swept arms, scrolling over the uprights,
which were still continuous with the legs. S-scrolls sometimes appeared in the design of front legs and increasingly on the front stretcher and framing of the canework on the back. This could be one or two rectangular panels, occasionally an oval.
After 1685, backs grew taller and narrower, with turned column uprights, sometimes fluted. Mesh of canework finer. Cresting sat on, rather than between, the uprights and sometimes matched the front stretcher. Seats smaller, supported on S-scroll and baluster-turned legs, fashionably ending in an inward-scrolling ‘Braganza’ foot, a Spanish feature. Front stretcher often of Dutch bow form.
During the 1690s, caning on back was often replaced by openwork carving and an upholstered seat. Sometimes a serpentine X-frame stretcher, close to the ground and supported on bun feet with tapered legs above and inverted cup knees. Alternatively, the carved
DUTCH IMPORTS
Many almost identical caned chairs were imported from Holland in this period and usually can be identified by thicker and shallower twist turning than English pieces; and by the absence or low position of the rear
stretcher (level with the ‘H’ stretchers). More than one type of turning may be present within a single chair.
front stretcher was set back several inches and tenoned into side stretchers. Legs sometimes formed as broad S-scrolls. Cabriole legs began to appear around 1700.
Oak, walnut. Cheaper beech sometimes used for painted or japanned chairs.
Tenoned joints until about 1685. Thereafter, cresting dowelled on to up-rights and seat dowelled on to legs at front. Chairs of this type made in walnut or beech may be structurally weak. Check for signs of repair.
Turning: Bobbin and twist more fashionable until about 1685, then baluster, but all types used at all times.
Carving: Mostly scrolls, flowers and foliage. By 1685 often pierced. Amorini supporting the crown (signifying the restoration of the monarchy) a popular motif for cresting, even during the William and Mary period. Found as late as 1700.
Victorian reproduction of provincial chair, with inferior carving.
1690s walnut chair of Marot type, with inverted cup knees and Dutch bow stretcher.
Generally polish. Grandest painted or gilt. Sometimes ebonised. During Restoration period fashionably japanned. Sometimes beech ‘grained’ (painted) to simulate more expensive walnut.
VALUES
Singles cheaper than armchairs. Those showing strong Dutch influence, with elaborate carving and swept arms fetch the largest sums, especially the Marot types, with upholstered seats, pierced backs. Generally
increasing in value as they get later and more elaborate.
Oak dining-chair, common from about 1660-1680.
Late-17thC chair with canework seat and back, and scrolled front legs.