Chair of stained beech, with spiral turned legs and stiles, the back and seat caned.

Chair of stained beech, with caned seat and back panels. The front legs and the stiles above the seat are spiral turned, with rectangular sections at the joints. Below seat height the back stiles are plain turned with rectangular sections at the joints and in the centre of the long, plain-turned sections. At the base of the back stiles there is a short, raked section, below the stretchers. The stretchers, set in H-form, are turned, with baluster shapes and with rectangular joint sections. A single, high, front stretcher, is spiral-turned across its width, with rectangular sections at the joints. The front legs end in small, turned feet which are replacements.

The back is raked above the height of a shallow cushion that would have been used on the seat. The plain lower rail of the back and the upper cresting rail (carved with symmetrical scrolls) are curved in plan. The muntins forming the uprights of the inner back panel are tenoned between them and are moulded on the front face.

The seat, which is made on a separate frame, is trapezoidal in plan, the side and front edges moulded. The frame slides into recesses cut on the inside of the back stiles (the joints fixed with single pegs through the side of the stiles) and fits over the top of the front legs, which are pegged into the underside of the frame. The seat may have been replaced.

Bought for £20 (with Circ.450 and 452&A-1921) from J. Crowther and Sons, 282 North End Road, Fulham, London SW. RF 21/5855.

Caned chairs appeared in England soon after the Restoration of King Charles II, and quickly became popular, being cheaper, lighter and less prone to dust and pest than their upholstered equivalents. They were widely recorded in middle-class as well as noble house inventories well into the first half of the eighteenth century. Both the technique and the material (rattan cane or calamus rotang split into long narrow strips) came from Asia. The canes were imported in large quantities by the East India Company to London, where the production of caned furniture was concentrated. Caned chairs were also exported from London in large quantities, so much so that in France they were known as chaises d'anglaise, and in the German states as englische Stühle. They were often used with a light seat cushion.

Unlike upholstered chairs, caned chairs seem to have been produced through a subdivision of piece-work labour by journeymen joiners, turners, caners and carvers, who seem often to have stamped their work with initials, as on the left rear upright of this chair (SM).

CIRC.451-1921