oak

Oak chair (backstool) with board seat and carved back rails, of pegged mortice and tenon construction.
The back with two matching rails (23-27mm thick) of arch form, with small half-round forms along the top edge and with a central cut-out underneath, and carved with C-scrolls centred on a stylised mask (in the form of an inverted tulip), and 3 turned pendants. The back uprights with inward scroll finials and nail head ornament, and each with a split baluster turning applied to the front face. With a panel seat, sunken 20mm below the level of the rails, formed by 3 oak planks (grained front to back) held in grooves in the rails; with a cushion (40 x 34 x 3cm) covered by red velvet over board, and four webbing straps that fit into holes in the board seat. The front and side rails with a simple scratch moulding along their lower edges. With a dark stain overall.

The frame with a single front stretcher (at mid-height), turned with baluster and rings and meeting the front legs in a square block, which matches the turning on the front legs, two plain, rectangular stretchers on each side, and one low, plain rectangular stretcher at the back.
A knotty oak has been used.

Modifications
The front right leg with extensive wood-worm losses (partly filled with epoxy). Wood-worm losses to the back rail and underneath the lower rail. A dark stain overall.

Chinnery suggests p.480 that the double cross-splat backstool originated in Yorkshire, but examples are now widely spread, and that it may now be too late to locate the original workshop centres, of which there must have been several. He suggests that early specimens may date from a little before 1650, while later examples were produced up to 1700 and a little later. Wells-Cole (1971) suggests that large numbers 'exist throughout the West and North Ridings. They probably all belong to the second half of the 17th century although only one dated example (1686) has been traced. The decoration of the back rails indicates that channelled spiral motifs combined with deep cross hatching, stamped enrichment and foliate carving was widely popular in the county. Since this stylised pattern is not repeated on other kinds of furniture its value as a feature for identifying companion pieces of local origin is limited although it obviously expresses a vigorous tradition.' (p.10) Knell notes that anonymous human faces (often bearded) are a recurring theme on everyday artefacts of the period and it is difficult to find conclusive proof of a specific person being intended, such as Charles I, in a predominantly Royalist region such as Yorkshire (p.266).

See KNELL, David: English Country Furniture, 1500 - 1900. (Woodbridge, 2000), pl.383;
CHINNERY, Victor: Oak Furniture - The British Tradition. (Woodbridge, 1979), pl. 3:137.
WELLS-COLE, Anthony: Oak Furniture from Yorkshire Churches (Temple Newsam, Leeds, 1971) no. 17, a chair from Darton.

By about 1650 relatively lightweight but stout chairs were becoming more common in English households, and were starting to replace stools for dining in more affluent homes. This chair would have been used with a separate seat cushion on the solid seat board. The carved back-pieces, board seat and single, turned front stretcher are distinctive features found on many chairs linked to south Yorkshire. Several workshops must have produced large quantities, to judge by the numbers of such chairs that have survived.

The carved back-pieces on this chair display a stylised bearded head of tear-drop form, that has been thought to represent Charles I, and to indicate royalist sympathies around the time of the Restoration of the monarchy. For this reason this type of chair has been traditionally dated to about 1660. However, no such chairs can be firmly dated so early, and their arched back-pieces may have been influenced by high-backed caned-chairs of the early eighteenth- century.

This object is on loan to Sewerby Hall.

232-1898