What type of chair is this?

dragit · #1 21st Feb 2012, 01:02 PM

Hello again,
I picked up this chair the other day at a garage sale,
It's in great condition, needing only the seat repaired…
Was hoping someone might be able to tell me what type of chair this is, as in style/era, then I can track down some instructions on repairing the seat…

It has an exaggerated curved back with a double rail, with round front feet…

I think it should have a leather seat cover with a small fabric trim?

Cheers for any advice
dragit

IanW · #2 23rd Feb 2012, 09:47 AM

Dragit, if you need a name, I guess you could call it "simplified Queen Anne" or something along those lines. What it represents is a much watered-down version of the style made famous by Mr. Chippendale (who came to prominence well after Queen Anne had gone, so I don't quite know how her name gets appended to a style that came after her reign). Cabriole (the word means 'little goat') legs go back into antiquity, but they were rediscovered in Europe at the beginning of the 1700s. The man who did most to popularise the style in England was Thomas Chippendale, who came up with something like this (pic 1).

A watered-down style, with much less refined carving (or none at al) became very popular in New England, and has remained popular ever since - up until a few years ago, there were still firms churning out chairs very similar to the pair in pic 2. The side chair on the left is one of a set of Walnut chairs I bought while living in Canada, made sometime after 1910, but before 1940. I used them as a model to make a pair of arm chairs (the unfinished chair beside it is one of them).

I saw quite a few chairs like yours (& repaired several!) when living in Vic, some time ago. They were all made of Blackwood, as I recall, and were almost identical to yours, though most didn't have the extra back seat rail. The splats (which were sawn to shape, not thin strips bent to shape) joined the rear rail. The 'pad' or 'Dutch' or turned foot of the cabriole legs on yours is a very common feature - the bottom of the leg is turned, first on-centre to shape the foot, then off-centre to shape the lowerer leg, then the top finished by hand & the 'ears' under the rail glued & screwed on at assembly. The "ball & claw" foot (copied from ancient styles) became popular, and is very much beloved of the Americans - seems like every Americam woodie aspires to carve a set or two.

The early English & American examples have thin seat rails and "H" stretchers, as on mine. These stretchers are turned and the pattern of the turned pieces follows a pretty standard pattern. Later, they widened the seat rails and dispensed with the stretchers as on the Chippendale in the pic. Your chair has very basic thin strips of wood stretchers typical of the locally-made chairs I've seen.

Seats can be either 'slip' seats that sit on the corner blocks of the rails, like on mine, or upholsterd directly onto the chair as yours seems to have been. In that case, the rails are often not of the same wood as the rest of the chair, but some less-expensive 'secondary' wood, selected for its naail-holding ability as much as anything.

That's exhausted my knowledge -
Cheers,

Woodwould · #3 23rd Feb 2012, 10:50 AM

I agree, the chair is a loosely stylised Queen Anne chair. Genuine Queen Anne chairs were made during Anne's reign 1702-1714 (first image below). The chairs were based on Chinese chair designs that were newly discovered and popularised through imports of the English and Dutch East India Companies.

Chippendale's designs resulted more from France's interest in Chinese/rococo taste and not as one would imagine, as a development of the earlier Queen Anne/George I style (Chippendale plagiarised earlier French designs... everyone was busy plagiarised everyone else).

The American versions of furniture styles/periods are completely out of kilter and can't be relied upon for accuracy or authenticity (unless relating to American furniture).

I would say your chair was made around 1910-1930.

IanW · #4 23rd Feb 2012, 01:27 PM

Thanks WW - I thought you would have a much better handle on the history than I. I wasn't aware that T.C. had come to his styles from a different direction, & assumed his chairs were just descendents of the preceding Q. Anne, which came to England from China via the low countries, according to my sources. Some books I've read say that only a small fraction of the furniture we now call Q. Anne was made during her (brief) reign, & most of it was made after she fell off her perch - they were still doing William & Mary for most of the time she was around. Is that correct?

Yairs, I have repeatedly found from my own reading that you need to be aware of which side of the Atlaantic you are talking about when it comes to furniture styles. They took longer to catch on in the colonies, and persisted long after the Europeans & British had moved on to something else. That's particularly true in that most distant colony that we now inmhabit, where styles were often simplified to the point of caricature, and persisted for even longer still.

So I suppose it's inevitable that the earlier style of chair is the one that persisted in the American colonies rather than the Rococo versions. Versions that are somewhere between Dragit's and the 'real deal' are still being flogged by the likes of Ethan Allen stores to this very day. They did make Rococo furniture in the 1700s, the famous name cabinetmakers on the eastern seaboard all had their copies of the "Gentleman and cabinet maker's director", 'tis said, and there are perfectly good examples in my Metropolitan Museum book on early American furniture. But I guess only the very wealthy could afford the extra for all that expensive decoration, and at that stage of history, obscenely rich people were still a bit thin on the ground. So the wannabes settled for the plainer stuff as being sufficient to impress their peers. In any case, the practical, plain-talking Yankee character would surely have been offended by all those pretty bits (& loath to pay extra for it!

)

Or perhaps, like me, they actually liked the lines & found all that excessive decoration spoilt the effect.

Sorry for the slight hijack, Dragit, but you were asking about styles & eras......

Cheers,

Woodwould · #5 23rd Feb 2012, 02:30 PM

Furniture styles (well the true British ones at any rate) are more or less datable to within five years, or less, of their manufacture, so chairs labelled as Queen Anne (by the better dealers) will be of Queen Anne period. Less knowledgeable or less conscientious dealers won't be as accurate. There have been great strides taken in authenticating antiquities in general and the British pride themselves in correctly attributing furniture etc. It's the same with period TV dramas and films of the past twenty years. Gone are the days when a pirate/Georgian gent was stuffed into a bright red frock coat with huge cuffs; the wardrobe departments and set dressers go to immense pains to nail all the period correct details.

It's interesting that even though many British furniture makers emigrated to the New World, the settlers and early Anglo Americans who could afford luxurious furnishings mainly bought English furniture and there was a strong trade in English furniture shipped to the colony right up until the nineteenth-century. From this one might deduce that the clientele who bought fine furniture followed London fashions in preference to the locally produced variants whose style had deviated so far from that of the Mother Country. Taste prevailed, albeit in diminishing levels, for at least a century and a half in North America. There were of course some outstanding American furniture makers too.

The majority of American dealers don't have a clue. If you look at some of the dealers' sites on-line, they label stuff as whatever they think will sell best. Mind you, they are somewhat behind the eight ball with the American dating and nomenclature.

It wasn't just the Dutch who brought the east to the west. England had their own East India trade that competed ferociously with the Dutch for everything from tea, spices, silk, printed cotton, porcelain and other luxuries. There was an unprecedented market in Britain for these goods which hasn't been seen on the same scale again since.

dragit · #6 24th Feb 2012, 11:46 PM

Thanks guys,
You have some great knowledge to share on this…

If anyone has any good online resources for tips on restoring the seat let me know?

I'm sure I will rustle up something,

I really like the look of this chair so am looking forward to making it usable again,

thanks again

dragit

IanW · #7 25th Feb 2012, 09:23 AM

Hi Dragit - don't know about on line, but there are a few books on upholstry kicking about, try your local library? The good news is that it's not all that difficult to do something like your chair seat. About the only specialised tool that you'll need for this job is a webbing stretcher. I looked for some on the web, & there's place in Melbourne selling everything you need, but they are asking a lot of $$s for a set of simple tools. The style of stretcher they sell is something you can make for yourself rather easily.

Padgham Upholstery

Woodwould is in your corner of the country, & he can probably tell you where to get what you need at a reasonable price......

Chhers,

twinkdetour · #8 11th May 2012, 05:39 PM

brought this chair at garage sale for $4

something about it struck me

the colour of it however was done today thx to my partner

but wondering if anyone would know anything about the chair itself

i would love to find another the same

if anyone can help me with a style name or any info on the shape of it
or even if you have one for sale

please get back to me.

sorry for posting this under another post but cant figure out how to post a new thread.

welshviking · #9 13th May 2012, 10:34 PM

That is one funky ass chair!