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Thread: A Double Bow Windsor Chair
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12th September 2012, 04:47 PM #1
A Double Bow Windsor Chair
I made my last Windsor chair primarily because I admired that particular regional style, but also because it didn't comprise any steam-bent components. At the time I made the comb-back chair I no longer possessed the requisite steaming equipage and didn't particularly want to make a new steam box just for one chair – not to mention the headache of finding somewhere to stash it afterwards in a home that's already bursting at the seams.
Well I still don't have the space to store a steam box and boiler, but I have long been itching to make a handsome, double bow chair with a fretted splat, cabriole front legs conjoined by a crinoline stretcher and subtly decorated, turned back legs. This style of Windsor originated in the Thames Valley area of South East England around 1750 and grew rapidly in popularity, spreading to all chair-making regions of England by the early nineteenth-century.[1] The English bow-back Windsor was also popular in North America; on the 18th of April 1765, the New York Gazette carried an advertisement for English bow-backs.[2]
The majority of double bow chairs incorporate a central fretted splat, commensurate with Chippendale's and other chair back designs of the period (figs. 1 & 2). Less common are those chairs with solely (an odd number of) sticks (fig. 3).
Fig. 1. Mid-eighteenth-century Elm and Ash chair with 'Chippendale' fretted splat.
Fig. 2. Mid-eighteenth-century Elm and Ash chair with 'Gothik' splat.
The ubiquitous wheel splat (fig.4) first appeared in the 1780s and the Prince of Wales Feathers splat (fig. 5) appeared after 1811 in honour of the Prince Regent.
Fig. 3. Mid-eighteenth-century Elm and Yew double bow chair with an all-stick back.
Fig. 4. Wheel splat.
One contributory factor to the Windsor chair's growth in popularity in the second and third quarters of the eighteenth-century was in their use as garden chairs. Socialising and posing for group or family portraits outdoors became highly fashionable and the Windsor's quaint bucolic appeal and portability lent them to life in the park (figs. 6, 7 & 8).
Fig. 5. Prince of Wales Feathers splat. (Michael Harding-Hill)
Fig. 6. Johann Zoffany, A Group of Gentlemen, c.1780.
Fig. 7. Arthur Devis, Henry Fiennes with his wife Catherine and son George at Oatlands.
These outdoor chairs were known as forest chairs, though it's unclear whether 'forest' refers to the (Beech) forests in the Chilterns where many of them were produced or the shades of green in which they were painted (figs. 9 & 10).
Fig. 8. Arthur Devis, The James Family, c1751.
Fig. 9. Green-painted low back Windsor, c.1780.
I will be basing my chair on the example below and painting it in one or more shades of green when the time comes.
Fig. 10. Green-painted double bow Windsor, c.1760.
Fig. 11. Elm, Ash and fruitwood double bow Windsor chair, c.1760.
[1] Thomas Crispin, The English Windsor Chair, Alan Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1992, p.68.
[2] Ibid, p.67..
I know you believe you understand what you think I wrote, but I'm not sure you realize that what you just read is not what I meant.
Regards, Woodwould.
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12th September 2012, 05:05 PM #2Jim
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Look forward to it WW. Is the green paint recipe going to be a secret like your bucket of wrath?
Cheers,
Jim
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12th September 2012, 05:42 PM #3
Will you need an assistant for the steam bending? Or anything else? Willing helper here.. (I love fig 3. Its so crocked. )
anne-maria.
Tea Lady
(White with none)
Follow my little workshop/gallery on facebook. things of clay and wood.
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12th September 2012, 06:06 PM #4.
I know you believe you understand what you think I wrote, but I'm not sure you realize that what you just read is not what I meant.
Regards, Woodwould.
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12th September 2012, 06:09 PM #5
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12th September 2012, 06:12 PM #6
Do you want to use my steam box?
I am learning, slowley.
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12th September 2012, 06:19 PM #7anne-maria.
Tea Lady
(White with none)
Follow my little workshop/gallery on facebook. things of clay and wood.
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12th September 2012, 07:23 PM #8
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12th September 2012, 07:28 PM #9
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12th September 2012, 07:41 PM #10anne-maria.
Tea Lady
(White with none)
Follow my little workshop/gallery on facebook. things of clay and wood.
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12th September 2012, 07:50 PM #11
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12th September 2012, 07:58 PM #12
What are you using as a steam source?
I am learning, slowley.
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12th September 2012, 09:45 PM #13
I'm pulling up a rocking chair to whatch this one.
SBPower corrupts, absolute power means we can run a hell of alot of power tools
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12th September 2012, 11:36 PM #14
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13th September 2012, 12:04 AM #15
I Love these chairs Woodwould so I'll be hanging in there watching as well.
Cheers, Ian"The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.. it can't be done.
If you deal with the lowest bidder it is well to add something for the risk you run.
And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better"
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