Mahogany Regency Chair - Gillows chair - Victorian Chair - Victorian Button-Back Mahogany ‘Ladies’ Chair

A mahogany Regency chair with lyre motif in the back, c.1825. The curved side rails and sabre legs are reeded to give a continuous effect. The drop-in seat is located by a peg set in the top of the front rail. As with all sabre-leg chairs the front legs should be examined carefully to see whether the top has been damaged; the construction of a sabre leg necessitates cutting across the grain of the wood thereby reducing the strength of the timber. It is a sign of quality if there are none of these repairs.
Price Range: Single    $45  $65
For some reason the lyre causes a rush of blood to the head in chair purchasers; look for inflated values accordingly.
Typical late Regency-cum-William IV rosewood single chair, c.1835. The front legs are octagonal in section and the design has become heavier. The drop-in seat is still light in character, however, and the classical
influence still evident.
A Gillows chair of 1841 made for Colonel Cradock. The back shows a stage in design which precedes the balloon back, while the heavily turned and reeded legs of the period have been replaced by finely made and
decorated cabriole legs. The seat rail has moved away from the Straight Regency design, and the total appearance is much lighter than the sub-classical designs of the 1820 - 40’s. The top rail is undecided as to
whether it is to follow the downward curve of the preceding example or to strike out into the new balloon shape. The French influence is also evident in the decorative effects.
Balloon-back Victorian chair in walnut c.1850. The cabriole legs, despite a tendency towards bandyness, mark the distinct move away from the heavy turned legs of the previous years. The nicely proportioned curve of the seat rail between the legs helps to accentuate the change to a flowing, curved effect. These chairs were evidently very popular and were made for a number of years  perhaps up to the 1860’s and in a modified form throughout the rest of the period.
Another mid-Victorian chair, c.1850, with cabriole legs and needlework back and seat. The legs are treated more slenderly, with less curvature and the scrolled knobs at the feet are less accentuated. The needlework, if original, adds to value.
A mahogany chair of c.1845 with cabriole legs. The back is upholstered and its broad heavy top rail follows the late Regency trend, but the revival of rococo taste is evident in the scrolled feet and in the scrolling of the lower back rail. The legs do not show any decisive curving and mark that indecision of design characteristic of the period.
A country mahogany chair of the 1820 - 40 period. The Regency influence is evident in the arms, but the broad top rail belongs to the later part of the period.
A Gillows’ design of 1884, which owes a good deal to fashions of an earlier period. The reeded legs are more bulbous and the upholstered seat  not shown in this constructional sketch  would be very full. The
chamfered and grooved inside edge of the back is to lighten the effect of the very broad top rail and uprights. The latter have been ornamented with a small scroll at the join of the top rail, which almost seems an afterthought of design.
Early Victorian (1839) Gillows’ chair with turned and reeded front legs. The downward curve of the thick top rail, which is carved, helps to produce a more integrated design. It is a sitting room chair with padded back to give additional comfort.
An unashamed Victorian mahogany chair  c.1850  of which the back owes much to the balloon design of more elegant versions. The uncorseted bulbous front legs are of a kind which have a robust appeal of their own, even though most dealers flinch at the sight of them.
Later period Victorian chair in mahogany. Note the heavier, squarer back with over-emphasized, eighteenth century style corner carving. The cabriole legs and seat rail are also heavily encrusted. The fully upholstered
seat gives an appearance of overstuffing and top heaviness.
A chair of a design normally associated with the William IV or early Victorian period. This is, in fact, a Gillows’ design of 1877 and illustrates the fact that one must be very circumspect about dating Victorian chairs by their design, for one finds similar designs being executed over a period of thirty to forty years. The fully upholstered seat and moulded front rail give a heaviness not present in our William IV rosewood example, but the back and the turned and reeded front legs could easily be associated with the 1830 - 40 period.
Sets of 4 or 6 $10  $15 each
Early eighteenth century  c.1720  wing armchair with cabriole legs in w alnut. Upholstered in leather. This is a fine example and well illustrates the three dimensional quality of the design. The wings sweep into the arms of this fine quality chair, which is as comfortable to sit in as one might imagine. Note the shape of the back legs; this feature was not normally well imitated by later craftsmen.
A more elaborate bergere chair of Victorian character, c.1850. In this case the cabriole legs and scrolled arms are in the same style as upholstered armchairs of the period. The back has a very pronounced rake to it
and the top rail sweeps boldly to a small scroll at each end. This example is in Virginian walnut and has a certain American air about it  possibly because ranch or railroad bosses of the Lee J. Cobb variety always seem to be sprawling in them on the screen. A loose cushion, possibly covered in hide,
would have been fitted in the seat.
A mahogany button-back armchair of c.1850. The influence of rococo Styles is clear in the carving and scroll feet. Possibly some of the later French Empire influence, prevalent in the 1810 - 1840 period, continued into the Victorian era without too much adulteration.
Carving  cabriole legs
Later Victorian upholstered chair on mahogany cabriole legs, c.1870. One of a large number of similar designs which, being very comfortable, have doubled in price over the last few years.
A Victorian button-back mahogany ‘ladies’ chair, with cabriole legs, c.1850. The top rail is decorated with leaf carving. The ‘grandmother’ equivalent of the previously illustrated ‘grandfather’ (i.e. with arms).
A mid-Victorian open armchair in walnut, of the popular button-back type, c.1850. The fluency of the curve between the arm supports and the cabriole leg is spoilt by the thickness of wood at the point where the scrolls are carved. Most examples are better balanced. This example is in walnut, but many were made in mahogany.
Another mahogany button-back armchair of c.1850, this time with turned legs. The arm supports are scrolled and so is the back. When the Victorians took to turning, they were predictably complex and the addition of reeding on the legs was often, as in this case, irresistible to them. Turned leg examples of this kind of chair never reach the same value as cabrioles.
A restrained mahogany armchair of the 1890 - 1910 period which, again, demonstrates the return to eighteenth century styles. The square tapering legs and inlaid stringing lines, together with the square back design. relate to Sheraton examples.

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.

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.

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.

Even at its most decorative and ornate, Sheraton furniture is made with very little integral ornament, and relies for its originality and sparkle on painting and gilding, inlay and japanning. Sheraton was puritan by conviction and by nature, favouring straight lines rather than curves, and multipurpose space-saving furniture for the ranks of Georgian terraced houses which had recently been built. He came to London in 1790 from the North of England, and was designing during the Napoleonic Wars, when materials and money were short, and much of his furniture was made in cheaper beechwood and birch, rather than expensive mahogany, although he did favour satinwood which was costly. In construction, Sheraton was a
traditionalist. He reverted to the old manner of making chairs with crest rails tenoned between the back supports, as opposed to overriding them or curving into them. On chairs with arms, he took the line even higher than Hepplewhite, so that the arm of the chair sweeps up to the crest rail in an abrupt curve, almost as though it is part of the back itself.
Signs of authenticity
1. Made of beech, with ash or birch underframes.
2. Crest rail tenoned into sides of back supports.
3. On chairs with arms, arms joined oined to fronts of back supports, high up and usually on a line with a horizontal back rail.
4. On chairs with upholstered seats, pronounced height of seat above frame.
5. Front legs taper-turned to the frame, then square-sectioned, forming the corners of seat
frames on straight-fronted chairs.
6. On chairs with round seats, legs taper-turned to frame, then square-sectioned flush with curve to form solid underframe.
7. Back legs either square-sectioned or taper-turned, but always square-sectioned at seat level to form stout join of chair frame.
8. Crest rail, supports and arms all turned, reeded or fluted.
Likely restoration and repair
9. Original frames of seats overstuffed when re-upholstered – a frequent Victorian practice.
10. Stripped and repainted and gilded.
11. Recaned panels and seats.
12. New blocks on corners of drop-in seat frame.
13. Damaged cane seats overstuffed – signs of holes for original caning on underframe.
14. Made of cheaper birch entirely – probably a later copy.
Construction and materials
In spite of their air of fragility, Sheraton chairs were remarkably solidly constructed, often in beech, with a sound knowledge of timber and of stresses and strains. In their basic construction, they have more in common with the traditional framed construction than any chairs made from the beginning of the eighteenth century onwards. The back is supported by a top rail and lower rail set parallel and tenoned into the sides of the back supports. The back legs are raked back and square-sectioned in his early designs, though later they were less solid and usually tapered or taper-turned, like the front legs. On chairs with arms, the design exaggerates the line of continuity from front leg to arm support, carrying it up to elbow height, often without a curve at all. The back splats are arranged in geometrical patterns of parallel
lines, lattice, or a mixture of both. Seats were often curved or round, upholstered and built up on a solid front apron.
Drop-in seats were
supported with four shaped brackets on the four corners of the seat frame. Front legs were taper-turned, and the use of beech allowed a slight splay since it is a pliable, springy wood, not rigid or liable to split.
Detail
Sheraton seats were often caned, sometimes also with caned panels in the rectangular backs. The back splats were characteristically arranged in geometrical patterns of parallel lines, lattice, or a mixture of both. Japanning, painting and gilding were also used. Crest rails, supports and arms were often turned, reeded or fluted to lighten the design.
Variations
The return to the square back suited many country chair-makers who were still making chairs with traditional construction, to which Sheraton had returned. Most typical of the country versions of his designs are the plain bar-back and rail-back chairs. The other two types of country chairs of the period could equally well have evolved naturally, without benefit of Thomas Sheraton’s The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book (1791-94), and indeed could have been the inspiration for many of his rectangular chair designs. Both originated in the North of England – the spindle back and the bobbin back with their deep plain crest rails developed from the old box-construction.
The country tradition of setting the front and back stretcher slightly higher than the side stretchers continued, and the front stretcher was also often simply turned, again a country tradition. On country chairs of this period, wooden seats were often slightly dished. On chairs with arms, the construction was traditional, with the arm support being a continuation of the front leg, with the arm tenoned into it.
Top: late eighteenth-century, cane-seated chair in simulated bamboo.
Above: Sheraton provincial chair, c.1810.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
Sheraton was very much a designer for the trade, and contemporary production of his chairs and other furniture was extremely large. During the early nineteenth century
Gillows of Lancaster, the
Seddons, Edwards and Roberts, Cooper and Holt, Wright and Mansfield, Jackson and Graham, Johnson and Jeans and many other large furniture manufacturers made quantities of Sheraton furniture.
The Victorians copied some of his more fantastic ‘Egyptian’ and classical designs, suitable for the increasing
ostentation in taste, and many Sheraton-style chairs were made in mahogany to give them a more substantial appearance.
Some of these nineteenth-century variations are pleasing, solid and well-constructed. Later versions are not so successful, having square-sectioned tapered legs and stretchers, or more bulbously turned front legs. The height of the bottom back rail was an integral part of the construction as well as the design, and on late versions chairs look oddly proportioned, as though the chair back has been compressed.
Twentieth century
During the Edwardian period, countless cheap copies of Sheraton’s little cane-seated chairs, gold-painted and flimsy, were made for ballrooms and public functions. They should not be confused with Regency ,rout’ chairs, which were elegantly proportioned and well-made, though few of them have survived intact.
Price bands
Simulated bamboo, c.1810, £.115-125.
Square back, reeded, c.1810, £120-180 each.
Set of six, with two
armchairs, £3,200-4,000.
Provincial reeded and plain, £90-120 each.
Set of six, £1,500-1,800.

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.