Antique Round-back Chairs
Adam round-back chair
Signs of authenticity
1. Fine, crisp carving in low relief in beech or dense-grained mahogany.
2. Seats overstuffed or upholstered, not drop-in.
3. Back legs raked and slightly splayed.
4. Hooped back in three
separate pieces: the two side-rails and hooped crest rail.
5. On chairs with central
pierced splat, separate shoe-piece attached to back seat rail.
6. Edge moulding and simple fluting to front legs – not plain square-sectioned as with earlier `Chippendale’ chairs.
7. Legs tapered on inner sides only – outer edges at right angles to ground.
8. On chairs with arms, slim curving lines, still attached to sides of seat rail but set further forward.
Likely restoration and repair
9. Arms added to single chairs to make up sets – width of seat should be at least 2 in wider for a ,carver’.
10. Check underframes for new wood and workmanship.
(Original sets are rare to find intact – many have been made up to the right number with excellent copies.)
11. Arms broken and repaired –line may not be as generously curving and sinuous as original. No patination on undersurface.
12. Back legs broken and replaced – grain of wood will not continue up to back of chair –line of join visible on bottom edge of seat frame where new leg has been dowelled in.
By the end of the Chippendale period (Thomas Chippendale died in 1779), fashions had changed considerably, due to the influence of Robert and John Adam, whose classical interior designs and architecture were altogether lighter and less substantial than those of the early Georgian period. The emphasis laid on painted and applied decoration had a marked effect on furniture design, and the preference for lighter colours influenced the woods and finishes used for furniture. Although George Hepplewhite is better known for his famous shield-back chair, he designed many chairs for Adam interiors, among them the hoop- or round-back chair which was a transitional step towards the radical construction of the shield back.
This period of chair design is particularly associated with tapering legs, either square-sectioned and ending in neat spade feet, or round, taper-turned legs on small peg feet. Often the rounded central panel was upholstered, and the seats of Adam round-back chairs were nearly always overstuffed.
Fashions in clothes changed, too, and the more clinging lines of dress allowed arm supports to be set closer to the front of the seat and swoop back to join the sides of the rounded backs.
Construction and materials
These graceful chairs were made in mahogany, and in beech, ebonized with black japanning, as well as in satinwood and in satinwood and
birch. The shape of the seat was nearly always curved or serpentine, and the back legs, while still continuing up to form the back supports, were slightly splayed. Legs were often tapered, and Hepplewhite reintroduced stretchers on many chairs to add strength to thinner tapering legs. Although the hoop of the back appears to be a continuous curved piece, it was still made with the same construction as earlier chairs, with the rounded crest rail meeting the top of the side rails almost seamlessly.
Detail
Often simple, tapering legs were lightened with fluting, or decorated with gadrooning or cabochon carving in low relief. On chairs with arms, the tops of the front legs were frequently decorated with classical motifs in accord with Adam designs. In earlier hooped-back versions of the Adam round back, the central splat was fretted and pierced, usually in vertical lines. and still fitted into a separate shoe-piece attached to the back rail a design that came to be known as the wheatsheaf.
Variations
The classic country wheelback and the hooped-back Windsor chair are contemporary with Adam round-backed chairs, but form a special category of their own (see pp. 70- 71). Most common country versions are the camel-backed wheatsheaf chairs, made in elm, or oak and elm with wooden seats and H-shaped stretchers and an additional back stretcher, still set high.
The construction and craftsmanship needed to produce a round back, other than the methods used for Windsor chairs, was beyond the country furniture-maker, who continued to make chairs with the traditional construction of separate crest rails attached either to the tops of the side rails, or fitting between them.
Reproductions
The more solid mahogany round back or hooped back has not been reproduced as often as its cheaper, more decorative counterpart, the painted beechwood chair of similar design. These were made in great quantities by the Victorians, with indefinably wrong proportions, as boudoir chairs and drawing-room chairs. The most favoured has an upholstered panel in the back and an overstuffed seat. To be fair, some nineteenth-century versions achieved a very pleasant look, though the Victorian tendency to make curved what should be straight often results in unattractive legs, bowed and serpentine, on an otherwise pleasing design.
There are some nineteenth-century florid ’spider’s web’ chairs, a variation on the plain wheelback, usually easy to recognize by the turning on the tapered legs which already shows a tendency to bulbousness.
The most popular design, reproduced incessantly since the late eighteenth century, is the `wheatsheaf’, often with a squared crest rail.
Price bands
Period painted beech or giltwood, £650-850 each.
Late eighteenth-century mahogany, with arms, £85-120 each.
Set of six, £2,000-2,600.
Nineteenth-century reproduction, £70-90 each. Set of six, £600-1,000.
Variations, far left: provincial
chair of Hepplewhite design. Left: a late Hepplewhite-style armchair.
Left, above: round-backed Adam-style chair, with raked back legs.
Tags: Adam, ARMCHAIR, back chair, CHAIRS, Chippendale Chairs, chippendale period, eighteenth century, furniture, furniture design, George, George Hepplewhite, georgian period, interior designs, john adam, mahogany, satinwood, thomas chippendale