CHAIRS — children’s high
Here of course, one cannot judge a chair by its correctness of proportion as against the adult equivalent. Instead the test has to be how successfully the maker has elongated the piece while keeping in sympathy with the style of his period.
In this fine child’s oak chair the maker has got it [...]

CHAIRS — children’s low
Very well made walnut child’s chair. Gloriously successful cabrioles, arms, legs and back. Only possible fault is that the back should perhaps be a fraction higher to be in proper proportion, but this is a very minor quibble about a superb piece. c.1720
An early eighteenth century child’s country chair; from the photograph [...]

CHAIRS — balloon back
The nineteenth century saw the development of many new styles of which the dominant one from 1840-1880s was the balloon back with cabriole and turned legs. The evolution is clear but one has only to look at The Pictorial Dictionary of 19th Century Furniture Design to see how style persisted, often over [...]

CHAIRS — turned leg, 1800-1840
The turned leg chairs of the 1800-1840 period derive from late Sheraton and other, usually classical, design influences of the period. Whereas the overall shape is clearly recognisable, an infinite variety of decorative
designs were used and it is again very difficult to range the quality of the enormous output.
A fine quality [...]

CHAIRS — country, Northern England
These chairs fall into distinct categories and can normally be allocated to various parts of the country. Basically, they are either ladderbacks, with or without a top rail, or backs made up of vertical spindles. A great deal of research has been and is being carried out on this subject. For [...]

CHAIRS — cabriole leg, low back
The lower back chairs are normally associated with the George I period. Certainly the design settled down around the 1720s and carved decoration became increasingly used.
A good George I example. The seat rail is much deeper than those of the previous section and the back is lower. The carved shell [...]

Sabre Leg Chairs
While variations in quality obviously exist, chairs with sabre legs do not go through the same gradations as previous types, perhaps because the country makers instinctively avoided them, mindful of the structural
weakness implied in the sabre leg, which must be cut across the grain at some point. The scrolling arms, with their wide [...]

CHAIRS — Hepplewhite
Hepplewhite designs are found along with Sheraton in the 1775-1790 period. They were both influenced by classical designs —a search for elegance. The main Hepplewhite forms are shown in this section.
A camel back design with 9 serpentine front and drop-in seat. The legs are Chippendale in form except that they now taper instead [...]

Sabre-leg chair
Thomas Hope, connoisseur and dilettante, is credited with the original concept of this radical design, but it was George Smith, cabinet-maker and furniture-maker who simplified the neoclassical shape and made the flush-sided chair a practical
Signs ofauthenticity
1. In solid wood, cut across the grain on the side frames so that at no point is the [...]

Bentwood rocker
Bentwood chairs have become so much a part of our lives as to be almost invisible. In a simplified form they have been used in so many everyday places - shops, schools, private houses and public places - that it is difficult to imagine that their whole style was once a complete revolution in [...]