George III Wing Armchair Upholstered - Mahogany Wing Armchair - Eighteenth Century French Armchair

A George III wing armchair upholstered in leather  c.1770. Note the square stretcher and leg construction of ‘Chippendale’ design. The curve of the wings is pleasant but the arms are a little stiff.
Price Range: $200  $300
N.B. As these chairs command high prices there is a grave temptation to make a set of legs in the Georgian style and cover the modern frame with leather. Such examples usually lack the fluency of curve which was
found in better class examples. A good dealer will leave the underneath uncovered to show genuine period features.
A Chinese Chippendale mahogany armchair with upholstered back and arms, c.1760. The bamboo motif is evident. The front legs are a remarkable achievement of craftsmanship and the nicely-scrolled brackets add
considerable balance. The upholstery covering is of typical period design. The legs are of clustered column design.
A later George III period  c.1790  mahogany wing armchair. The sweep of the curve formed by the wings and the back rail is important. Compare the straight high line of the wings and arms in this example with the
fluency of the two previous examples. This example is also rather thin, lacking the generous proportions of the better quality chairs. The lines would be improved by upholstery but the basic quality is lacking. The legs are tapered, ending in casters.
Price Range: $60  $90
Value points: Line of back, arms and wings
Mid-eighteenth century chair in mahogany showing Chippendale construction in legs and stretchers, c.1760.
Carving or moulding on legs  Originality of casters
George II period  c.1740  mahogany chair with stuffed back and saddle-shaped seat. Covered in Soho tapestry woven with birds and small landscapes in broad naturalistic flower borders; on scrolled cabriole legs. Price Range: $150  $200
Regency period chair decorated with brass or painted gilt mounts, frequently ebonised.
Price Range: $20  $40
Value points.- Brass decorations
Well curved leg with stretcher
A later eighteenth century chair, probably c.1795, with leather upholstery, on turned legs. The shaping of the back still follows the ’saddle’ style, but the chair is cruder and the legs date it much later. Price Range: $100
$140
A George III period  c.1780  open armchair with arched stuffed back and padded arms on curved supports with anthemion carving, the moulded frame with bead carving, the stuffed seat on turned tapering  legs with
lotus leaf feet.
An open giltwood armchair  c.1760  with considerable Adam influence in the frieze and fluted legs.
A later eighteenth century open armchair of French influence, but actually of a type made also by Chippendale, c.1780. The decoration includes cartouche backs headed by shell cabochons. The frame is carved with leaf mouldings, the scrolled arms with leaf shoulders. Covered in later gros-point needlework with panels of flowers in key-pattern frame against a blue ground with roses.
Bergere caned chair of Regency period, in rosewood, c.1830. These well made chairs have increased in popularity over recent years.

Mahogany Hepplewhite Chair - Georgian Chair - Sheraton Style Arm and Single Chair in Mahogany

A mahogany Hepplewhite chair of pleas the late eighteenth century arms show the more restrained curves of the seat, legs and stretchers are still bold and firm in proportion.
Value points: Quality of back splat carving.
A Country Hepplewhite design chair, c.1795, of a type most frequently found made in elm. Normally they are stained or varnished to look like mahogany, and have been stripped and polished later if now in the natural
wood. The design is known as a camel-back and is a logical development of the town-made mahogany one; simpler in execution and less decorated.
Hepplewhite shield-back chair c.1790. The carving of the back is of particularly fine quality. The tapering legs are fluted and the decoration of brass studs adds further ornamentation. Normally executed in mahogany. Front legs end in spade feet.
Price Range: Considered by many to be a high point in English design, original shield back Hepplewhite chairs fetch very high prices. Those below are an indication.-
A country version of the two previous Sheraton style chairs, c.1810. The seats are solid and the back leg and upright very much straighter and rigid, with very little rake. The backs are also simplified; the front stretcher
is placed high between the two front legs as with earlier chairs instead of between the two side stretchers.
A later Georgian chair of Sheraton influence, c.1800, in the back but with arms more associated with Hepplewhite styles. The tapering front legs and the back are moulded; a mark of quality.
A mahogany chair of c.1790 of a design also associated with Hepplewhite although some of the conflicting trends of eighteenth century designs are evident in the square legs and eight pointed wheel effect. It is a fairly simple version of a beautiful design and represents a considerable accomplishment in craftsmanship. Note that the front legs end in spade feet.
A Sheraton design chair of considerable workmanship, c.1795. Many such chairs are to be found painted in white and gilt or otherwise having painted decoration on birch or beech wood. In the main the painted versions are more highly sought after than the mahogany ones, which makes for higher prices. Note the turned and fluted legs. The arm uprights have spiral reeding.
A Sheraton design arm and single chair in mahogany, c.1795. The uprights and arms are reeded, which lightens the square solidarity of design. Note the vase shaped turned arm supports and the way in which the
broad top rail is panelled.
A Sheraton style arm and single chair in mahogany, c.1800. The legs and back uprights are reeded; this effect is also carried round the panel in the wider top back rail.
Late eighteenth century arm and single chairs, c.1800. Note the broad top rail in the back, the panel veneered in figured mahogany. The spiral twist middle rail is a feature of quality particularly important in value assessment of these chairs. The legs are turned, without any fluting. The arms of the elbow chair sweep forward and curve down to meet the line of the front legs. The proportion of these admirable smaller dining chairs makes them extremely popular in the modern home.
Another late Georgian c.1810 mahogany armchair, something of a combination of Sheraton and prevailing styles. The wide top back rail is veneered with a panel of figured mahogany and the centre rail is elegantly
reeded. The turning of the front legs and the arm supports, with the popular vase shape, is lightly and gracefully done. Occasionally brass stringing will be found around the inlaid back panel, which adds to the
decorative value.

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 more information see an article by Bill Cotton, who has studied this subject in depth, on ‘Country Chairs’, Antique Collecting Vol.8, No.6.
From left to right, top to bottom-Wavy line ladderbacks. A similar chair is in a Hogarth print c.1730. There are a number of variations of these Yorkshire chairs which are hardwearing and generally considered the best of the type.
1730-1800    Armchair
A variation from the Midlands, missing half its top rail. Again, good quality but the back design is perhaps not quite as well balanced as the first example.
1740-1830    Set of two  six
The Macclesfield variation of the second category. Again the rush seat comes over the front rail as with all chairs of this type. 1740-1840
The Wigan shape of ladderback is again seen on these wooden seated top-rail types with shaped front rail. A carver is very seldom found. 1760-1840
The third main type, the spindlebacks predominantly from north Cheshire and south Lancashire. It is thought that the further north the chairs were made in Lancashire the thinner the spindles. Another variety has two lines of spindles with a top rail between the uprights often with some Chippendale design feature on it. They are lighter and are thought to come from Liverpool and Manchester. 1750-1840
Quite a different variety coming from Ormskirk or the Preston area of Lancashire. Very robust. 1840-1900

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.

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 furniture-making. Today they are turned out in their thousands in factories all over
Signs of authenticity
1. Laminated wood, built up of alternately grained strips.
2. Generous curves with long unbroken sections curving under and over, rather than separate pieces joined at short intervals.
3. Taut panels caned on the diagonal to allow for the springiness of the chair.
4. Surface of wood smooth and silky, instantly recognizable once touched, compared with later solid bentwood.
5. Impeccable finish with sections shaped and smoothed to flow into the join.
6. Early solid birch bentwood chairs should be finely sanded and finished under black
I ebonized’ paint.
Likely restoration and repair
7. Laminated bentwood chairs and rockers which have been subject to too many changes in temperature and humidity will be ’sprung’ on curves, i.e. there will be splitting where the wood has shrunk and pulled away. It may be tacked and glued back into position but the damage is permanent and will occur again.
8. Recaned on the horizontal and vertical. The caning will break and the chair will not maintain its shape, but will eventually split from the strain.
9. Black paint stripped off. If this has been done by complete immersion in a caustic solution there may be some dissolving of the adhesives between laminations. Stripping must be done painstakingly by hand and there should be some small signs of remaining paint.
England, but their origins were elite and aesthetic.
Michael Thonet (1796-1871),
their inventor, was an Austrian who trained as a craftsman in the South German Biedermeier school of furniture-making. This was established as a reaction against French influence, in part motivated by the aspiration for a united Germany after the Napoleonic Wars, and in part aesthetic, a search for well-designed ‘bourgeois’ furniture. The parallel desire was felt in England, and was evident in the designs of J. C. Loudon and his school. Biedermeier was particularly successful with seat furniture, which was solid, well-made, elegant and, above all, comfortable. It was Michael Thonet’s search for new materials and techniques to
make chairs without ornament, carving or traditional construction that led him to experiment with the shipbuilding techniques of steaming and bending wood. His designs were first produced in laminated wood in the 1840s.
Thonet took out patents for his chair-making techniques, but when the patent ran out in the 1860s a London firm of furniture-makers, Hewlett and Company, took it up, and by the end of the century bentwood chairs were being made by many furniture-makers, particularly in High Wycombe, centre of England’s chair-making industry.
Construction and materials
Michael Thonet’s original designs were made in thin strips of wood, steamed and bent into shape and laminated together - a technique which had been known in England for about 100 years, although laminated wood had only been used for parts of furniture and not for a whole piece. Thonet’s first commission for these novel, smooth-curving designs was for the Leichtenstein Palace in Vienna, and although they were more detailed and complicated in their sinuous construction, the basic bentwood chair of today differs very little from those prototypes.
In England, the technique of steaming and bending wood had been applied to Windsor chairs for some years, using solid wood as
Variations
Bentwood chairs were particularly suitable for children, and both high chairs and small, miniature versions of the standard shape were made, particularly in the 1920s, for use in schools and nurseries.
Some early, finely designed, bentwood chairs made in England include versions of the sabre-legged S-armed chair, with the back made in a single hoop with the back legs, which are raked well back. Front legs curved forward in imitation of the line of the sabre-leg, but were round-sectioned and taper-turned. The S-curve of the arms was particularly suitable for the new bentwood technique.
Once furniture-making factories had begun to turn out bentwood chairs by the thousand, their finish and style degenerated into the ‘tearoom chairs’ of the 1920s and 1930s, being reduced to circular hoops and slightly splayed legs, whose timber was no longer carefully chosen for the correct grain, and which have since split and cracked.
opposed to laminated. The timber was generally birch, traditional wood for chair-legs because it was amenable to bending and was springy enough not to break or split. The cane seat, too, had been in production for country chairs and lightweight seat furniture ever since Sheraton had reintroduced it at the end of the eighteenth
century.
Early genuine Thonet bentwood chairs and rockers, for which the technique was particularly
suitable, were more curvaceous and elaborate, mainly due to the laminated wood which allowed more freedom than later bentwood chairs in birch, which consisted mainly of a series of hoops and standardized curves.
Reproductions
After a considerable spell of unpopularity as ‘cheap chairs there are now many extremely good reproductions of the original bentwood chair on the market, many of them originating in Taiwan and the Far East, where manufacturing is cheap and labour still skilled in traditional crafts such as caning. Their reappearance on the English scene can largely be attributed to the many well-designed small restaurants with imaginative decor, for which they were originally imported.
Price bands
Superb intricate shapes, top condition with original labels and original, unshipped
finish, £850-1,000.
Stripped or plain, simpler shapes with original label, £550-850.
Set of six chairs, original caning and labels, £350-500.
Period singles with labels and authentication, 135–50.
1920s plain but in good condition, £15-20.
Above: a child’s bentwood high chair, c.1870.
Right: an original Thonet, c.1860.

Balloon-back chair

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.

Windsor chairs

Although these chairs are usually attributed to the end of the eighteenth century, their origins go back much further, and chairs of similar design are known to have been made as early as the end of the seventeenth century. Their construction is entirely different from any other type of country chair, and relates more
Signs of authenticity
1. Figuring of grain clearly visible on underside of seat as well as surface — timber was split, not sawn.
2. On chairs with arms, yew wood arm hoop until c.1790.
3. Back and front legs with matching turning.
4. No nails, joints of any description other than plain taper-turned tenons on all joins.
5. Saddle shape to seats, on versions with and without arms.
6. On chairs with arms without V-support and ‘bob tail’, grain running from side to side on seat.
7. On chairs with V-supports, and ‘bob tail’, grain running front to back.
8. Uneven thicknesses of ’sticks’ on all hand-made chairs.
9. Back feet more worn from use than front feet.
10. Worn, rich patination on seat and all parts in contact with body.
11. On hooped backs, ends of hoops split and wedged under seat for added strength.
Likely restoration and repair
12. Legs replaced, so no wear on feet.
13. Sticks replaced and these not taper-turned.
14. Seats not saddle-shaped suggests recent reproductions.
15. Saw-marks on undersides of seats indicates recent manufacture. Seat timber was split not sawn.
16. Hoops not dowelled right through seat or split and wedged indicates recent manufacture.
17. Legs replaced with wrong timber, often elm, to match seat. Should be beech, birch or fruitwood.
closely to the joint stool than to any other early chair. It is probable that they evolved from the simplest form of seat furniture of all - the three-legged stool.
In the case of Windsor chairs, it is not the backs, arms or legs which are the most important feature. It is the seat, made of a single slab of wood, usually elm, and worked with an adze into a saddle shape. This single
feature remains constant in all true Windsors, with or without arms.
The bending properties of yew wood had long been known, since it was the wood from
which longbows were made. The first use of a yew-wood bow on Windsors was not the upright hoop but a circular back and arm support, parallel to the chair seat. Originally the legs were simply pegged into the
Construction and materials thick seat-timber without stretchers. and splayed to wedge them. A row of holes was dowelled round the seat, and straight taper-turned ’sticks’ joined oined the arm-hoop to the seat, continuing up to form a curved back. held in place by a simple crest rail.
These early Windsors are often known as ’stick-backs’ or ‘comb backs’ because the shaped crest rail resembles a comb. It was not a very solid construction, and sticks and legs
became insecure and fell apart with use and as the timber shrank. But as long as the seat was intact, the pieces could easily be replaced, since they were extremely simply made. This rudimentary design seems to have been made independently by foresters and wood-turners all over the country, with regional differences in woods and detail, wherever there were good supplies of suitable timber. They are found in the West Country, and the Midlands, and notably in Buckinghamshire, in and around High Wycombe, which later became the heart of English chair-making, and has continued to be the centre of the industry until the present.
Improvements in the rudimentary design were soon apparent: a thicker central splat, often only below the arm-hoop, appears on many chairs before the full-length decorative central splat. Stretchers were inevitable to make the construction more solid. They were either very simple, joining the front and back legs on either side, or H-shaped, taper-tenoned and swelling in the centre. Extra support was given to stick-backs with a short extension to the back of the seat, with two extra stays in a V-shape behind the back.
It is hard to determine precisely when the hoop back first became a feature of Windsor chairs, but certainly it was contemporary with Hepplewhite’s round-back chairs. Up to this period, the arm hoop was still a relatively open curve, but with improved steaming and bending wood, introduced continued overleaf.
Reproductions
Victorian
Windsor chairs have been in continuous production quite authentically until the end of the nineteenth century, with small differences in methods of manufacture. As is to be expected, those made during Victorian times, such as the smoker’s bow, have rather more bulbous turning than earlier periods, but not enough to detract from their obviously traditional pattern.
Twentieth century
Everyone should be familiar with the innumerable mass-produced versions - usually singles - made by furniture-makers with well-known names. Their chief difference lies in the materials: machine-sawn woods for seats, with no figured grain on the underside and very little on the seat surface, steamed hoops, straight ’sticks’ without taper turning, machine cut and fretted centre splats and identical machine-turned legs.
Recently, smoker’s bows have been made in blonde woods, and in cheap pale woods, stained and ebonized. Some are of excellent quality but will not endure one quarter the length of time as an original Windsor. Most of them are not cheap, and with diligent hunting it is still possible to find genuine Windsors in twos and threes, and even sixes, for the same price, though they are more likely to be of the less attractive ‘kitchen chair’ type than hooped backs, which are now extremely scarce.
Genuine Windsor chairs dating from the eighteenth century are extremely expensive and sought after. Even late nineteenth century Windsor chairs with hooped backs can cost as much as their dining-room counterparts. Good Windsor chairs with arms are very much in demand.
Variations

Invariably the saddle seat was made from well-seasoned elm, a wood which did not warp with damp and was less likely to shrink or split than oak. Ash is also sometimes found in some districts. Legs were often of straight-grained beech, easy to work and turn, and less liable to wear. Arm hoops were almost always of yew wood until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The ’sticks’ were of ash, beech, birch or fruitwood - pliant woods with spring, rather than solid woods like oak and elm which are more rigid and liable to split. All four legs were turned to the same pattern and pegged or tenoned into holes in the seat, often with the dowels continuing right through the seat, as on joint stools. Stretchers were plain H-shaped on most straightforward Windsors, taper-turned and tenoned into the legs. In the mid-eighteenth century the ‘cow’s horn’ or crinoline stretcher was a feature of Windsors with arms, curving back from the two front legs and joined to the back legs with two angled, taper-turned stretchers. On these chairs, legs and arm supports were of a simplified baluster shape with ring turning. The hooped back on armed chairs is pegged right through the arm hoop - on chairs without arms, right through the seat. The back ,sticks’ are the full height of the chair, running through the arm hoop from seat to crest.

Windsor chair towards the end of the eighteenth century, woods other than yew could be used. It was steamed and bent, then clamped and cooled in the shape of a horse-shoe or hoop. By this time there had already been many refinements in the basic design: legs were bobbin-turned, front and back, as were the arm supports. Cabriole legs were used in the mid-eighteenth century, in most cases not very successfully as far as design was concerned. During the `Chippendale period’ many chair-makers attempted variations on the ‘Gothic’ with some curious results.
The two best-known designs for the central splat of the hoop back are the ‘wheelback’ and the ‘Prince of Wales’ feathers’, both contemporary with Hepplewhite. It was probably around this period that these essentially country chairs were dignified with the name
`Windsor’, by which they have been known ever since
Child’s high chair, early nineteenth century, in elm, ash and yew, with cow’s horn or crinoline stretcher. The footrest is missing.
Price bands
Elm and yew smoker’s bow,£.150–200.
Comb back in yew, ash and elm, £240-450.
Child’s high chair, £650-750.
Cabriole leg, eighteenth century, £850-1,200.
Nineteenth-century ‘kitchen’ chair, £85-160.
Highly-prized late eighteenth-century Windsor, with Cabriole legs, crinoline stretcher, well-designed pierced back splat and curving arm supports.
Elm and yew smoker’s bow, with rather bulbous Victorian turned legs and arm supports.
Early nineteenth-century comb back.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century the hoop back armchair was made in a design known as a ’smoker’s bow’. This was a squat version of an arm chair, with a flat bow cut from a single piece of wood, with a dumpy little crest rail dowelled on to the back. The ’sticks’ were far stouter, and were usually bobbin-turned, splaying out from the seat and dowelled into the underside of the flat armpiece. Hooped-back armchairs, wheelbacks and Prince of Wales’ feathers designs have rather eclipsed all other varieties of the Windsor chair such as the rail back, the lathe back and the spindle back.
The two factors which characterize a Windsor remain constant however: a solid seat into which the legs are pegged or tenoned, and a separate back structure, pegged or tenoned into the seat. No Windsor chair has back legs which continue up to form the supports of the back.
Late nineteenth-century
version of classic Windsor, with heavy arms, crest rail and thick back splats.

Hepplewhite shield-back chair

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.

Chippendale dining chair

Historical background
Designs for Thomas Chippendale’s chairs were freely available once his pattern book, The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director was published in 1754 and were
Signs of authenticity
1. Solid, heavy mahogany, smooth and silky to the touch.
2. Underframes of beech, plane or sycamore.
3. Crest rails fitting into tops of side rails where design scrolls outward-curving.
4. Crest rails fitting between curving side rails where design is rounded.
5. Drop-in or overstuffed seats.
6. Separate shoe-piece attached to back of seat frame.
7. On chairs with cabriole legs, deep apron with rounded corners to seat frame.
8. On chairs with square legs, square corners to seat frame.
9. Seat frames on early dining chairs straight (not dished until c.1780).
10. On chairs with arms, arm supports set back almost half the depth of the seat, screwed with hand-cut screws, the screwholes concealed by plugs or dowels, now virtually invisible.
Likely restoration and repair
11. Later carving and fluting to legs – carving will not stand proud of silhouette.
12. Broken back legs repaired or replaced, by dowelling into sawn ends on the line of the apron.
13. Drop-in seats replaced with overstuffed – the apron beneath the seat material will be
polished like the rest of the frame, not left plain or made of correct underframe wood.
14. Heavy carved decoration on back side rails – either carved later, or a marriage between a late Victorian copy and a period chair. Correct decoration for period was plain or fluted.
15. Later, Victorian cabriole legs dowelled into underframe to replace broken originals. Bandy-legged appearance where not enough thickness of wood has been used for the legs.
made with modifications and variations by numerous furniture-makers throughout the period 1754-80.
The main shift in design from previous shapes was the squared, almost over-running shape of shoulder and crest rail, and the pierced and carved central splat. Mahogany was used almost exclusively for dining chairs of this period: its immense strength and density allowed pierced work of great elaboration. The beginning of the period maintained rounded
corners to chair seats, but once Chippendale reintroduced plain squared legs, seat corners were also square.
Chippendale chairs were made in sets for dining rooms. Their backs were lower to allow the newly adopted custom of dining d la Berline – with footmen serving dishes individually, instead of the hitherto traditional English way of dining, from a side table heaped with food.
Construction and materials
Throughout the Chippendale period, dining chairs were made in solid mahogany, oiled and rubbed smooth with brick dust or sand to a glossy, silky finish. The backs of chairs were lower, with square shoulders often terminating in small upward-curling scrolls. There were two types of construction: the traditional, with the crest rail fitting between the two side rails which curved inward towards the centre, and the innovative, with the crest rail almost over-running the outward-curving side rails, like a cupid’s bow. On chairs with arms, the supports were higher and the arms ran almost parallel with the seat, fixed to the sides of the seat frames almost half way back, to allow for fashionable full skirts.
Detail
Although the central splats, crest rail and legs were profusely decorated, the stiles were seldom carved, but left plain or fluted. Seats of chairs were sometimes overstuffed or had deep decorative aprons, often serpentine in shape.
It is surprising to learn that the technique of lamination was first used for the fretted backs and ornament of the Chippendale period. Layers of veneer of alternating grain were glued together and then cut with a fret saw into intricate shapes.
Variations
Simplified variations of Chippendale’s designs were made by most country furniture-makers, usually in oak, but also in elm, beech, ash and fruitwoods. They had plain wooden seats made of planking nailed to the underframe, usually in more than one piece, with the grain going from side to side. Occasionally they are to be found with rush seats.
The designs of the back include the crudest cut-out work – most commonly a curving variation of four or five straight splats, either in a wheatsheaf shape or an open vase or violin shape. Most widespread and enduring are those made in a
simplified ladderback design. Legs are square, sometimes slightly chamfered on the inner sides. The back stretcher is still set higher than the front, and the two side stretchers are parallel. The tops of the front legs form the sides of the seat frame, and there is usually a fairly deep apron.
Below left: classic example of later Chippendale, c.1700, ladder-back.
Centre: a provincial vase splat. Right: classic North country ladder-back.
Far right: nineteenth-century ‘ribband-back’.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
Provincial furniture-makers were often as much as 50 years behind the most recent fashions, and ‘Chippendale’ chairs were still being made at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century they were being made by many furniture manufacturers, slightly modified, with rather meagre cabriole legs, or with the slimmer, scrolled leg and foot typical of the later period of Chippendale design. Often designs such as the ribband back and its variations had square legs and stretchers instead of cabriole legs.
Many Chippendale-style chairs were mass-produced for public rooms, assembly halls, hotels and board rooms, with machine-cut central splats, square, leather-covered seats, often dished, and with the shoe-piece made as an integral part of the back seat rail. Quality of materials and craftsmanship divide the mass-produced from good Victorian copies, which today are fetching extremely good prices.
Price bands
Late eighteenth-century mahogany, £400-550 each. Set of six, £5,000-7,000.
Country versions, £120-190. Set of six, £2,160-3,420.
Nineteenth-century walnut, £350-400 each.
Nineteenth-century mahogany – set of six, £3,000-4,000.

Queen Anne wing chair

The Palladian architecture of the early eighteenth century suited the English landscape beautifully, but the high ceilings and spaciousness of the interiors were more suited to warmer climates. Porters in draughty halls sat out their on-duty hours in deep, hooded chairs which almost entirely enclosed them. In drawing rooms, their masters and mistresses sat protected from draughts in high-backed wing chairs, elegantly upholstered in fine needlework. In libraries, wing chairs were leather-covered and edged with rows of brass studs.
The square shapes of earlier periods gave way to curving lines and hooped backs to seating furniture, which was designed for comfort as well as elegance. Over two and a half centuries have passed and the design of the winged chair has remained virtually unchanged.
Signs of authenticity
1. Beech, plane or sycamore frame, with rust, dirt and embedded fabric where original upholstery was secured to the frame with square-headed iron nails.
2. Front legs continue up to form the corners of the seat frame.
3. Flowing S-curve of the arms, ending in rounded arm rests, curved and tapering down to the seat frame.
4. Back legs continue up above back seat level, raked inward before sloping gently outward to form shape of raked back.
5. Cabriole legs short, well-proportioned, with or without carving on the knee.
6. With pad feet and stretchers, the join is always into square-sectioned blocks, the stretchers usually H-shaped.
Likely restoration and repair
7. Almost certainly completely re-upholstered at least once in its lifetime.
8. Frames rebuilt, repaired, particularly on arms, which may have broken outwards and been pinned.
9. Back legs broken and replaced.
10. The whole built up from two good cabriole legs, perhaps from a stool or other piece of furniture.
11. No wing chair should be bought as genuine unless the underframe is visible at some part – particularly on the joins of the legs.
Construction and materials
The key shape of the eighteenth century wing chair is the curve, with the line carried down to the neat curve of the short cabriole legs in front and the splay of the back legs. For the first decade of the eighteenth century the seats were deep, and the arms set more or less square, but from c.1710 the seats flared out to accommodate the wide hooped skirts and full coattails of fashionable dress. The frames were made of beech, plane or sycamore — woods which could be close-nailed without splitting. Cabriole legs were of walnut until c.1720, and then of mahogany. They were upholstered with tow or horsehair, bound with webbing, and covered first with hessian and then with calico before the final upholstery in leather or needlework.
Detail
Early eighteenth-century wing chairs had little carved decoration on the front leg ‘knee’ (more elaborate carving became fashionable after c.1720 with the introduction into England of mahogany). They had shaped squab seats and frames were studded with small brass-headed nails around the outer sides of the wings and on the base above the legs, particularly when upholstered in leather.
In the early eighteenth century, front legs ended in plain pad feet and stretchers were slender. After x1730, heavier ball-and-claw feet were preferred and stretchers were often omitted altogether.
Variations
Upholstered furniture of any kind was a luxury until the mid-Victorian period and was not made or used by any but the well-to-do.
The equivalent of the wing-back chair in country furniture is the high-backed, oak settle to seat three or four people near the fire, with wings to keep out the draught, and the high-backed, so-called `lambing chair’ which was simply a single version of the long settle. Later, Windsor chairs became the country equivalent of the upholstered wing chair.
Below: wing chair with crisp outlines, c.1710.
Right: ‘Porter’s chair’.
Reproductions
There has been virtually no break in the production of winged chairs of one sort of another since they were first made. Some later eighteenth century wing chairs have wide ribbed backs and are more curved, with shorter arms, but most originals are very hard to find in any good state. The only major change in construction came in 1828 with the invention of the coiled spring for upholstered furniture. In the mid-Victorian period some chairs were made with cast-iron frames, a short-lived idea because of their extreme weight.
Above: nineteenth-century version, with bulging arm supports, drooping wings and insignificant legs.
Price bands
Eighteenth century, with original upholstery, k5,000
Eighteenth century, with later upholstery,
0,500-4,500.
Eighteenth century, with pad feet and stretchers, £2,500-3,500.
Nineteenth-century reproductions, £450 700.