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Chair

ca. 1760 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This chair was sold to the Museum in 1911, from the collections of the important furniture-making firm in High Wycombe, W. Skull & Sons. Many firms in the late 19th or early 20th centuries kept collections of 18th-century chairs and other pieces to supply models for reproduction pieces, that were an important part of their output. An armchair from the same set, also from W. Skull & Co's collection came to the Museum the following year (Museum no. Circ. 434-1907), so the model was clearly popular. The importance to the Museum of this chair now is that it retains its original structural upholstery and in the 1980s the covering of black horsehair was renewed in such a way that they upholstery could be cut away to show the layers of such work.


Object details

Category
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Chair
  • Stuffing
Materials and techniques
Mahogany with oak or ash rails and braces, other woods in later repairs. Carved and joined without pegs. Original upholstery structure with remnants of the original haircloth top cover.
Brief description
A ladder-back chair of mahogany, with a dished seat upholstered in black horsehair, the top covering partly cut away to show the original structural upholstery
Physical description
A ladder-back chair of mahogany, with a dished seat upholstered in black horsehair, the top covering partly cut away to show the original structural upholstery.

Design
The front legs, back stiles, top rail, three bars and shoe, and four stretchers are all of mahogany. The seat is dished with the back and front seat rails concave on the top (and also curved on the bottom) and upholstered in black horsehair. The legs and stretchers are of rectangular section, the front legs moulded on the front and side faces, the back legs raked. The stretchers are slightly rounded on the top surface and are set as an H-formation stretcher, with an additional, higher stretcher between the back legs. The tapering back uprights are carved with a moulding on each edge on their front faces and with foliage on the upper, outer corners. The serpentine top rail and the three rails of the ladder-back, are each carved with a shaped piercing to either side of a central roundel (pierced) that is carved with foliage and in such a manner to suggest that the upper part of the rail is twisted at this point. The seat is now newly upholstered with black horsehair on the Proper Right half, and cut away on the Proper Left to show the layers of the original structural upholstery (the remainder of the upholstery is stored as CIRC.243:2-1911).

Construction
Back and side stretchers joined to the stiles and legs by bare-faced tenons. The middle stretcher is joined to the side stretchers by a stopped, sliding, half dovetail slid in from the bottom and stopped at the top. The back stiles have chamfered inside front corners in the leg section. The seat rails are tenoned in to the front legs and back stiles. The back stiles are tenoned to the top rail and the bars appear to be joined by back-level bare-faced tenons. The shoe is pinned down to the back seat rail over the upholstery. The four seat rails are of oak or ash, the back rail veneered in mahogany. There is no pegging in the construction

The front left corner has its original brace (oak or ash like the seat rails) which appears to be keyed in at both ends. The front right brace has been replaced by a modern pine ogee block and there is a key in the front rail where the original brace was but the side rail oddly seems just to have a scored line, rather than a proper key. The seat upholstery is now supported from underneath by a board supported in ledges that are pinned to the rails and to the back face of the front left open corner brace. The ledge behind the centre part of the front seat rail is now missing. How was the board inserted without disturbing the brace?

Curious nail holes run from top of seat to top of middle bar up the outer face of both stiles and also along the back face of the back seat rail. Ghost of label formerly glued to the back face of the back seat rail.

Front seat rail has a patch on the bottom edge of the front face, right hand end, 9 cm long.

Now with brass castors (which may be original) on circular plates screwed up to the back legs with no recess.

Evidence for possibile regional manufacture is the use of oak or ash seat rails and the lack of any shaping to the top of the stretchers.

Upholstery: foundation of 1½-chevron webbing, 3.2 cm wide, linen(?) weft and hemp(?) warp (can't see how many each way with board underneath) and a plain-weave hemp(?) base cloth. Straw lip or edge roll on front and sides under a linen(?) (finely woven) stuffing cover, side lips covered first and then front lip on top. A main stuffing of black and white horsehair and a top stuffing cover of loosely woven (?) plain weave linen. Remnants of the original horsehair nailed to the outer face of the front right leg. Left half of seat given new calico stuffing cover and new haircloth top cover with two rows of brass nails, close nailed, following the original nailing pattern.
Dimensions
  • Height: 91cm
  • At top of back width: 52cm
  • Front feet width: 56.6cm
  • Between front and back feet depth: 52cm
  • Whole depth: 57cm
Checked on 24/8/2010 by LC
Gallery label
CHAIR, English; about 1760. This common form of chair, with its open mahogany back, was found on inspection to have its original webbing and padding which is here shown exposed and with one quarter of the padding cut away. Note the straw-filled roll round the edge. The seat was originally covered with black horsehair. New horsehair has been applied on one side Museum No, Circ. 243-1911(June 1980)
Credit line
Chair purchased from F. Skull of Walter Skull & Son, High Wycombe
Object history
Chair purchased from F. Skull, High Wycombe, along with eight other pieces (from the High Wycombe furniture-making firm of Walter Skull & Sons) (See Registered File 1631/1911 and 2639/1911). The chair was described at the time simply as a ladder-back chair, second half of eighteenth century.
This chair was originally covered in black horsehair, a fragment of which was discovered when the seat was opened up in 1980. All the original upholstery was found to be present under a modern covering. New black horsehair has been applied but the rest of the upholstery has been left exposed (with one quarter removed) to serve as an exhibit. Such a survival must be very rare.
(Peter Thornton note 1980). Notes on the upholstery are held on departmental files.
Production
See physical description for details of materials and construction which suggest that this chair may have been made in a regional workshop rather than in London
Summary
This chair was sold to the Museum in 1911, from the collections of the important furniture-making firm in High Wycombe, W. Skull & Sons. Many firms in the late 19th or early 20th centuries kept collections of 18th-century chairs and other pieces to supply models for reproduction pieces, that were an important part of their output. An armchair from the same set, also from W. Skull & Co's collection came to the Museum the following year (Museum no. Circ. 434-1907), so the model was clearly popular. The importance to the Museum of this chair now is that it retains its original structural upholstery and in the 1980s the covering of black horsehair was renewed in such a way that they upholstery could be cut away to show the layers of such work.
Associated object
Bibliographic reference
Chairs with comparable ladder-back design are illustrated in Cescinsky, Herbert, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, 1909 p244, Plates 265-267.
Collection
Accession number
CIRC.243:1to2-1911

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Record createdJune 23, 2004
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