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 grain running at an angle of more than 45′.
2. Back rail and crest rail tenoned inside back frame supports.
3. Seat frame flowing in continuous line from crest rail to legs.
4. Upholstered seat contained within seat frame, not
overstuffed.
5. Decoration, stringing, brass inlay, flush with surface and silhouette.
6. On chairs with arms, arm supports in counter-curve to front legs, often with scrolling at armrest.
7. Arms follow precise curve of seat and back frame, finishing flush into front of back support.
8. On chairs with arms, upholstered seat contained within seat frame and arms.
9. Front legs with more pronounced forward curve than back curve of back legs.
10. All legs square-sectioned, unstretchered.
Likely restoration and repair
11. Caned seats replaced with upholstery, covering front seat rail.
12. Legs broken, split and
pinned - most vulnerable point just below knees of front legs. Examine grain closely for
repairs.
13. Back supports broken and repaired. Both these points may not detract from appearance but considerably weaken structure.
14. Decorative brass rosettes on sides of knees, seat frame
junction with back legs - may conceal pinning or repair.
15. Attractive if incongruous carving on front legs other than reeding. Probably conceals a partly replaced leg.
commercial proposition. Its lines derive from Ancient Greek and Egyptian rather than the Adam `classical’ and it represented the height of the Regency taste for unbroken lines and severe curves. Probably the most well-known design – certainly the most copied and reproduced – is the `Trafalgar’ chair, with a rope-twist incorporated into the crest rail or back rail, made to commemorate Nelson’s victory.
There had been many technical advances in furni making by the end of the eighteenth century. Steam-driven machinery, bonding, laminating and veneer-cutting , all had a considerable influ on furniture design. There also a far greater scientific understanding of weight and stress. The flush-sided chair remarkably modern construction, with the timbers cut scientifically across the grain so that the leg and side-frame were made in a single piece, bonded to the curving back and back leg in a single continuous line.
Construction and materials
This radical design was made in solid mahogany, rosewood, simulated rosewood, ebonized beech, real and simulated calamander, and, in some less costly versions, with side frames and seat rails of solid dark woods with a beech underframe. The test of a genuine flush-sided chair is that it can be laid completely flat on its side on the floor. Legs are always unstretchered, the front legs frequently have a more pronounced curve than the back legs - hence its name ’sabre leg’. The crest rail, often several inches deep, is tenoned to the inside of the back supports and does not overrun the seat frame. Chairs with flush sides and crest rails over-running the side are of later date. Seats were upholstered and curved with the side-frame. They were never overstuffed at the front, where there was always a straight seat rail joining the two high-curving knees.
In line with the fashions of the day, the sabre-legged chair was also made in a lighter construction, with a dark wood, or ebonized beech for the frame, and caned seat and back panel.
Detail
Frequently there was continuous reeding which carried from the side of the crest rail, down the top of the seat frame, over the knees and down the front of the slightly tapered square-sectioned legs. Brass inlay, stringing and decoration were flush with the surface. On arms, there is often scrolling at the end of the armrest.
Variations
These chairs required a considerable amount of technical knowledge and equipment to make, and consequently there are no country versions of this design.
The simple shape of the traditional slat back with a deep, plain crest rail and plain wooden or rush seat could probably be related to the sabre-legged chair, but it would be stretching the point. The most commonly reproduced design is the over-curving S-armed chair with matching
dining chairs, often with caned seats, and most frequently found in beechwood, ebonized or painted and gilded. Strictly speaking, these are not true flush-sided chairs, since their arms are round-sectioned and their wide crest rails usually overrun the sides.
Below left: flush-framed, c.1830. Right: cane-seated, flush-framed, c.1820. The rope-twist crest rail has been broken by a stylized decorative design.
Reproductions
Victorian
From the beginning of the Victorian period, the pure shape of the flush-sided chair became spoiled by turned front legs instead of the strict curve of the sabre leg. This was probably because the flush-sided chair was by nature expensive to make and used a considerable amount of timber to achieve the right
spring and strength to the legs.
Twentieth century
Few of the myriad variations begin to match the elegance and simplicity of the original. About 30 years ago the lyre back was very much in fashion, and a variation of the flush-sided chair was made commercially by some high-quality manufacturers, usually in ebonized beech. They proved to be far less durable than the originals, mainly because the difficult cross-cutting of the timber was skimped, and the sabre legs split where the grain ran at too acute an angle.
Modern versions of a cane-seated flush-sided chair are to be found in some high-quality department stores, made with modern techniques, probably in High Wycombe, centre of the chair-making industry in
England, where many of the originals were also made.
Price bands
Late Regency, with overrunning crest rail, £120-150 each. Set of six, £800-1,000.
Cane seat, simulated rosewood, beach frame - set of six, £.880-1,000.
S-arm chair, £250-320.
Plain mahogany - set of six, £700-900.
(Rosewood more expensive than mahogany; brass inlay also more expensive.)
William iv turned leg - set of six, £600-850.

The voluminous skirts of the mid-nineteenth-century woman needed wider, broader seats to chairs, and so the severe curves of Regency furniture swelled and rounded. There were several conflicting currents which influenced the Victorian furniture designers: the slim silhouettes of Sheraton furniture, the more angular shapes of the sabre-legged and
Signs of authenticity
1. Good quality solid woods with good graining.
2. Well-made frames with good thickness of wood for legs, back and seat frame.
3. Deep, incisive carving and shaping of back and seat rails.
4. Crest-rail join to tops of side supports should be seamless, virtually invisible with well-matched woods.
5. Solid, high-quality upholstery in curled horsehair – white for the very top quality.
6. No stretchers to legs – cheap mass-produced ‘period’ balloon backs were made with stretchers but they are neither durable nor particularly attractive.
7. Grain of front legs running up to corners of seat frame.
8. Grain of back legs continuing well above seat level to terminate at crest rail or design feature.
Likely restoration and repair
9. New upholstery covering whole of seat frame. This may indicate seat frames are split or broken, repaired and covered up.
10. Front legs replaced – either broken or ‘married’ from a better-designed chair.
11. Backs broken and repaired. Vulnerable points on inward curve of waist, and where crest rail joins back supports.
Plugs will probably be clearly visible.
12. Strengthening blocks or metal braces added to corners of underframe.
13. Original drop-in frames filled, upholstered over front and side seat rails.
the flush-sided chair, and a nostalgic hankering for the ,romantic’ shapes of Queen Anne and early eighteenth-century designs. Added to these, the technical advances in mass-production and the cheapness of labour lured designers into a tangle of unhappy liaisons. The cabriole leg reappeared, but with a thin scrolled or pad foot, all heavily carved and decorated. The fine lines of Sheraton’s taper-turning became bulbous, the reeding thickened, and even in such designers as Gillows of Lancaster, chairs seemed the least successful pieces of furniture as far as the eye was concerned.
In the balloon back, however. there was a mixture which. if not immediately appealing to the stricter rules of design was extremely successful as far as its function was concerned. It was, and still is, one of the most comfortable chairs ever made. Its waisted back reflects the shape of fashion, and though in many mass-produced chairs the front legs seem ill-assorted with the plain square-sectioned back legs, in many the results are well-balanced in a peculiarly Victorian way.
Balloon backs were made for a variety of purposes and differ 3 slightly in shape, depending on whether they were intended for the parlour, dining room,
bedroom and drawing room, or for occasional use as side chairs.
Construction and materials
Balloon backs were made in solid wood, in mahogany, rosewood, walnut, and simulated rosewood. Their construction reverts to the traditional one of front legs tenoned into the sides of the seat-frame and back legs continuing up to form the side supports of the back. Frames were usually of beech or birch with seats upholstered in cloth, needlepoint or leather with brass studs.
Many lighter balloon backs were made entirely in beech, stained or ebonized, and mass-produced with machine-cut timber and shallow
mechanical carved decoration. With these chairs, it is quality rather than date which determines price – good and bad designs were made simultaneously during their entire production period which spans nearly 100 years.
Detail
The most characteristic balloon-backs have a waisted back and a single seat rail, usually set low, carved and decorated. There were some designs made with a vertical back splat, carved and decorated, reaching only to the seat rail, and these were known as crown back.
The most familiar shape, with a crest rail which dips in the centre, is usually associated with rectangular,
square-fronted upholstered or drop-in seats and a straight seat rail. This design usually has heavily turned front legs, or stout, bulbous reeded front legs. On oval-back chairs, the seat is rounded and the legs are frequently an emasculated version of the cabriole leg, terminating in little scrolls, outward curving and somewhat bandy, sometimes with small tapered feet. Heavier salon chairs were often set on castors. Some of the more pleasing designs have upholstered back panels.
Variations
Period country designs were not made by individual country chair-makers, involving as it did many mass-production methods. Cheaper versions made in very reputable furniture-making centres were certainly destined for Victorian cottages, and were usually made in beech, painted or stained, with cheap-quality upholstery materials and little or no carved decoration. Many people find these simple shapes preferable to the more ornate provincial chairs, so they are by no means always less expensive.
Below left: nineteenth-century Adam revival chair with upholstered back, carved crest rail and apron, and curving, ‘French style’, legs.
Below right: early balloon-back, c.1845, with curved crest rail, waisted back, neatly turned front legs and upholstered seat.
Reproductions
It is doubtful whether any manufacturer has yet found it a commercial proposition to reproduce balloon-back chairs. They were made in such enormous quantities that there are still plentiful supplies of genuine period chairs available which, with restoration, stripping, reupholstery and general repair, find a ready market.
Mixing and matching is carried out on quite a large scale: for example, a bulbously unattractive front leg replaced by a better-looking design, either newly made or taken from other chairs in poor condition. The only pitfall occurs when mahogany front legs have been added to a chair otherwise made entirely of beech, or vice versa. It does not enhance the value, since, although the ultimate product may look better, it is clearly a marriage and therefore not worth as much even as the original cheaper chair made entirely of beech.
No doubt there will come a time when these extremely comfortable, typically Victorian chairs are reproduced, then it will be a question of becoming aware of modern methods of construction and the use of woods which were definitely not part of the Victorian chair-maker’s repertoire.
Price bands
Upholstered back, £200-250 each.
Standard plain, £30-70 each. Set of six, £320-550.
Rosewood, mid-Victorian –set of six, £650-900.
Carved, mid-Victorian – set of six, £800-1,000.
Rosewood-framed chairs are the most expensive, followed by walnut, then mahogany.

The relative austerity of Regency furniture and the soft clinging clothes worn by the ladies of the period were ousted during William IV’s reign by the new ‘Naturalistic’ line. Furniture became more curvaceous, seats of chairs wider to accommodate the increasing volume of ladies’ skirts and gentlemen’s frock coats, both of which were smartly nipped in at the waist.
Signs of authenticity
1. Solid ‘black’ Virginia walnut, rosewood or solid mahogany frame, carved and decorated.
2. Front arm supports and front legs in one continuous piece with decorative motif integral to the shape and design.
3. Deep, crisp carving with scrolling or floral and foliate motifs.
4. Original upholstery in worsted damask, cotton-andworsted, or silk-and-worsted, machine-woven, or in heavy velvet.
Floral, stripes and imitation tapestry or dark plain colours.
5. Deep buttoning to backs and inside arms, plain sprung seats until c.1890.
6. Backs curved in spoon shape to fit the body — buttoning to `waist’ of back only.
Likely restoration and repair
7. Back legs broken and
replaced. Replacements may be simple and slightly raked, looking well but less solidly balanced.
8. New upholstery — almost inevitable, but buttoning should not continue below the line of the ‘waist’ of the back.
9. Front legs and/or feet
repaired where broken or split. Change in patination is always on a diagonal line with repair and runs into the leg grain.
10. Original, bulbously turned legs, replaced with a ‘marriage’ of legs from another, similar chair. Line of front seat rail will carry through between arm and leg, whereas on genuine carved cabriole-type legs there is no break at seat level.
This hour-glass shape was echoed in seat furniture, and when Samuel Pratt took out a patent for sprung upholstery in 1828 it was in answer to a demand for even more comfortable chairs and sofas.
Even as late as the early Victorian period, it was considered strange for the centre of rooms to be cluttered with furniture except when in use, and seat furniture was always on castors so that it could be moved back into a tidy arrangement round the room when not in use. Once the rounded, curving lines of upholstered furniture began to be exploited, all kinds of central seat furniture made its appearance, notably the back-to-back sofa and the circular sofa, deeply sprung, tasselled and curving.
Arm chairs at first had sprung seats and button backs, developing from the lines of the Adam round-backed chair into one of the most familiar pieces. of Victorian furniture. Later, seats as well as backs were buttoned, and there were high-backed ‘grandmother’s chairs’, more dumpy, rotund `grandfather’s chairs’ and their counterparts without arms, as well as tub chairs, bedroom chairs, nursery chairs and parlour chairs, all made with carved mahogany, Virginia walnut or rosewood frames and beech underframes. Some of the most successful designs incorporate a cabriole-type leg with a scrolled `French foot’, far more elegant than the later, bulbously turned legs of mass-produced and provincial chairs.
Construction and materials
Early versions of Victorian upholstered chairs from c.1830-50 were usually open-armed, with small upholstered elbow pads and ornate curving scrolls to arms and back, with a solid Virginia walnut frame and a curved, plain seat back.
Underframes were of beech, ash or birch, and the construction was still similar to earlier armed chairs. From c.1850 the arms were filled and upholstered, and the backs, shaped with two low scrolls like a judge’s wig, had small decoratively carved features rising above the curved back frame. The back legs, until now plain and slightly raked, developed a bowed curve and there was often a decorative carved apron across the front seat rail below the upholstered sprung seat. At the same period low chairs with hourglass or balloon-shaped
Variations
Suites of drawing room balloon-back chairs with high backed ‘grandmother’s chairs’ with buttoned backs and open arms were made in great quantities, some of
upholstered backs were made without arms, their seats wide and generous, their curved cabrioletype legs set wider than the back legs. These were known as ‘ladies’ chairs’ and their high-backed, armed equivalents as `grandmother’s chairs’.
Detail
After the introduction of machine-carving around 1850, upholstered chairs of all shapes and sizes were made with less detail, shallow carving, and generally with turned front legs. Early upholstery tended to be unyielding because it was a mixture of linen waste and horsehair, but this was soon replaced with American cotton and wool waste mixed with horsehair, a combination that was much softer and more comfortable.
them very decorative, others of poorer quality, for they were mass-produced from inferior materials. As with much Victorian furniture, quality and craftsmanship distinguish between early, well-made and well-designed button back chairs and later versions. This type of chair continued to be made well into the early Edwardian period, although in the main it was relegated from drawing rooms and parlours to bedrooms and the servant’s upstairs quarters.
Right: a low button back, sometimes called a nursing chair.
Reproductions
The revival in popularity of Victorians in recent years has led to many furniture-manufacturers producing copies of the smaller tub chair with button back and low rounded seat. On the whole these look perfectly adequate, but fillings for upholstery are more often than not a polystyrene-type foam chip which goes flat and loses its spring after some use. In terms of value it is better to seek out one of the many varieties of original on the market than spend money on short-lived modern reproductions.
Price bands
Open-armed, well-carved, solid walnut frame and apron c.1850-70, £350-500.
Spoonback, no arms, cabriole-shaped legs, solid walnut carved frame, £400-550.
Curved back, integral upholstered arms, carved legs and frame. Rosewood more than walnut, £350-600.
Left: open-armed button back, c.1870.

George Hepplewhite started his career as an apprentice to Gillows of Lancaster, and is the first recorded furniture designer to work for a large company of furniture manufacturers. His pattern book, The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide,
Signs of authenticity
1. Correct proportions laid down by Hepplewhite: height of seat frame 17 in, depth of seat 17 in, width of seat 20 in, overall height 37 in.
2. Legs and back of good quality, dense-grained mahogany.
3. Seat frames in beech.
4. All carving in low relief, softened with age and wear.
5. Top of shield construction still a crest rail, joined to the upward-curving sides of the shield.
6. Waisted join of back support to shield secured with hand-turned screws, concealed by plugs or dowels, now almost invisible.
7. Bottom of shield rounded, never pointed.
8. Tapered front legs fluted or carved with restrained motif.
9. On chairs with arms, arms set forward or directly over tops of legs.
10. Arms set into sides of shield, not spoiling the line.
11. Legs tapered on insides only.
Likely restoration and repair
12. Underframes of pinkish-tinged birch, used in the nineteenth century.
13. Seats upholstered within wooden frame indicate
nineteenth century.
14. Arms set into sides of shield indicates possible replacement of original arm, or nineteenth-century copy, or a single chair with added arms to increase value.
15. Front legs tapered from the outsides indicating a
replacement or a later copy.
16. Back legs square- sectioned to seat frame, then waisted (originals were shaped from the seat frame upwards in a graduated curve) indicates back supports replaced, or a later copy.
was not published until 1788, two years after his death. Its intention was ‘to combine elegance and utility and blend the useful with the agreeable’. Although Hepplewhite died in relative obscurity, his designs continued to be made both in London and the provinces in large numbers well into the nineteenth century.
The shield back is probably his most famous design, which has been copied and reproduced in many variations, though seldom successfully. The remarkable point about the design is that the entire back is concave to take the sitter’s back comfortably, yet seen from the front there is little or no distortion of proportion or shape. The shield-back design was a direct outcome of the round- or wheel-back chair and it marks another radical change in construction.
Construction and materials
The shield-shaped back was entirely supported by a short continuation of the back legs, shaped and waisted to flow into the outward curve of the shield. The base of the shield was rounded and the top crest rail was an exaggerated cupid’s bow. Without the centre splat, the seat could be overstuffed at the back as well as the front, which was serpentine or curved with a much deeper apron than previous designs. As no part of the seat frame was visible, it could be made in beech, which was less expensive and did not split when close-nailed for upholstery. On chairs with arms, the arm support sprang from the tops of the front
legs and curved up to meet the arms which were often set higher at the back to follow the natural line of the body.
Detail
A favourite motif for the central design of the shield back was the Prince of Wales’ feathers and another was the Greek urn.
All the carving on the seat back was in low relief and, like the Adam round-back chair, the legs were tapered and fluted.
Occasionally, there was restrained decorative carving on the front legs and, on chairs with arms, on either side of the seat where the tops of the legs formed the corners.
Variations
The difference between a country version of a round back and a shield back is marginal, since both designs merged in the wheatsheaf, which could also be said to be a simplified Prince of Wales’ feathers design. They were usually made in elm, beech and fruitwood, with square-sectioned legs and four stretchers (with the back one set slightly higher than the other three). The other variation of the Prince of Wales’ feathers design is to be found in Windsor chairs (see pp. 70-73).
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
The shield back is one of the most copied and reproduced chair designs in the whole spectrum, yet it is seldom correctly achieved. Nineteenth-century copies were frequently made with stretchers to add strength to the construction. In spite of its apparent simplicity it was a difficult chair to make, and many of them were made with upholstered seats with solid mahogany frames and aprons instead of underframes and overstuffed seats.
Shields were made in three sections, tapering to a point at the base and mitred together, and the low-relief carving is mechanical and repetitive, adding little to the overall appearance.
Reproductions are quite easy to detect, since the shield looks flattened and too broad when seen from the front, although from the side the proportions seem right. Undeterred, manufacturers of reproduction furniture continued to make sets of ’shield backs’ and its close relative, the ‘lyre-backed’ chair (with brass uprights to simulate harp strings), throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century.
Price bands
Good quality, c.1780, £220-500 each.
Provincial camel back, £75-125 each.
Set of six, £900-1,350.
Nineteenth-century shield back, £120-140 each.
Set of six, £900-1,300.
Variations, far left: camel back, c.1790.
Left, above: stubby, stretchered version, with the arms set into the front of the shield.
Left: shield back, c.1780.

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.