Panel-back Chair
variations which are quite distinct and recognizable, for the feudal lords were still the equivalent of petty kings in their own territories.
Earlier versions have completely boxed-in seats, a design which lasted until the end of the sixteenth century and overlapped the more sophisticated design with turned legs, built more on the
Historical background
These chairs were among the earliest pieces of furniture to be elaborately decorated and, carved, as befitted the important seat of power they symbolized, whether ecclesiastical or temporal. There are many regional
Signs of authenticity
1. Well-worn oak, with no crisp edges. Carving should be worn and rounded with age and wear.
2. Panelled backs and seats of uneven thickness as wood was split and not sawn.
3. Same turning on front legs and arm supports.
4. Back legs slightly splayed, always square-sectioned, never decorated.
5. Panel grain vertical, not horizontal. Frame construction with chamfered panel to fit into grooves on the uprights, on the grain and not across it.
6. Dowelling and mortise-andtenon joints to stretchers, frieze, seat and back frame. No nails used in construction.
7. Thick build up of patination under arms and arm scrolls where chair has been handled.
8. Some damage and distressing to vulnerable front legs, front stretcher, arms.
Likely restoration and repair
9. Back panel replaced with different panel, often Flemish, taken from coffer, church panelling, etc. Decoration will not accord with crest rail or other decoration on chair.
10. Completely replaced chair back, planed out to resemble framing. Grain will run on over the top and bottom frame.
11. Front legs broken and replaced. Grain of front leg will change, often on ring-turning, or below frieze where it has been joined.
12. Original plain back `improved’, usually by
Victorians, often with early date added, in carving of wrong technique for the period, or with patriotic symbols:
Scottish thistles, etc.
principle of the joint stool. Panelled backs persisted long after the base of the chair had lost its enclosed, coffered construction. Plain chairs without arms, which derived from this pattern, formed the basis of many country chairs for centuries, and the straight-backed, panelled chair continued to be made well into the eighteenth century.
Construction and materials
Like all furniture of this early period, the panel-back chair was made of oak, quarter cut and split, with a ripple in the grain. The solid stretchers were often at ground level, reminiscent of its origins as a boxed-in chair. Where the stretchers are raised off the ground, legs always terminate in square block feet to take the width of the stretcher tenoned into it. Arm supports were a continuation of the front legs and the sides of the back panelling were a continuation of the back legs.
Detail
Arms were often scrolled, but square in section rather than rounded and often had carved decoration on the outer side.
The top rail or crest rail was elaborately carved and often ended in scroll ‘ears’.
Some chairs had plain backs, richly painted and gilded while others had carved backs with architectural elements – arches, architraves, columns, pillars and arcaded or geometrical strapwork –more reminiscent of the stonemason’s, than the carpenter’s craft. Stylized scrollwork and foliage is also to be found richly and deeply carved; rarely one might find carved heraldic devices or royalist symbols.
Variations
Variations are regional and quite distinct. The North country design is distinguishable by its overrunning carved sides either side of the arms, and elaborately carved crest rail terminating in rounded scrolls. The East Anglian design frequently featured an arched panel in the back, which fanned out on a level with the arms and not below, as in the North country version.
Northern chairs are heavier, with more ornate scrolled carving incorporating leaves with column-
turned or reel-turned legs, whereas southern counties followed more fashionable shapes, such as the baluster and a simple cup and cover or acorn shape for legs and arm supports. The straight-backed chair without arms also has distinct regional variations, notably the Yorkshire and the Lancashire, both of which derive from the armed chair, and have shaped crest rails and distinctive though simplified carved scrolled ends or ‘ears’.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
Whole sets of ‘Lancashire’ and ‘Yorkshire’ chairs were made to match up with the bulbous-
legged ‘medieval’ tables made for dining in Victorian baronial halls, recognizable principally by the grain and colour of the oak, which is sawcut, stained and uniformly dark and lacklustre. Although the carving was shallow, these chairs were too ornamented, with frilled aprons and exaggeratedly curving, scrolling arms. The carved backs and crest rails were made in a single piece, with the grain running from top to bottom, with shallow carving in the wrong designs. The carved crest rail was made separately and pegged to the top rail.
Stretchers are too high off the ground and often the whole design has been ‘modified’ to what was considered to be better proportions and decoration.
Single chairs were made to approximately the same design for public buildings, hotels, institutions and assembly halls, with plain panelled backs, or with leather backs studded to the sides, and overstuffed leather seats, also studded, a design that lasted well into the twentieth century.
Price bands
Plain backed, with ‘ears’, £2,000-3,000.
Genuine period carved back, rare, 15,000 +.
Eighteenth-century country version, no arms, 185-100. Set of six, £ 650-750.
Nineteenth-century reproductions, £10-20.
Variations, far left: James 1, South Yorkshire or Derbyshire chair,
with scrolled ‘ears’ and sophisticated turned and fluted arm supports and front legs. Left: seventeenth century panel-backed chair, with baluster turned legs and high front stretcher.