A chair, one of a pair, of turned and carved beech(?), dark-stained. The back arched at the top, the legs and stretchers turned, the seat and back panel caned. English, 1710-20

A chair, one of a pair. High-backed, of turned and carved beech(?), dark-stained, the seat and back panel caned, the back legs slightly raked below the seat. The tall back is arched with two flattened S scrolls at the top linked by a flat bar. The turned front and back legs are joined by a turned H-stretcher, with two additional, high stretchers running between the front legs (with two ball turnings separated by a collar) and between the back legs (plain baluster). The two front feet are each carved with a twin-toed foot.

The back uprights are full-height, tenoned (but not pegged) into the one-piece, pierced D-shape crest (the lower bar of the D only visible from the back), apparently an unusual feature. The side rails of the seat frame are tenoned into the front rail and into the back uprights, with mortises cut into the front rail so that it engages with the front legs. The back rail of the seat frame is tenoned into the back uprights. Not all joints are pegged: the stretchers are pegged to the legs, not to each other. The back stretcher is not pegged.

Modifications
Two corner brackets are screwed underneath the side seat rails where they meet the back uprights.
Missing the small scroll finial from the left back upright.
Old repairs to inner edges of the sides and back rails.
The caning in the back is evidently of considerable age, having distorted somewhat. Losses in the back caned panel. The caning to the seat panel is obviously replaced.
There are obvious insect exit holes all over.

Given by H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll

Given by H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, Kensington Palace; the chair was accompanied by a cushion.
RF 26/408, 55/3396, 51/2517

In terms of dating, the chairs probably post-date 1710, based on the design of the back with a framed back panel, moulded on the front face of the posts and cross-rails, with superimposed crest rail (so that the rail could be 'conceived as a continution of the rear posts rather than as a cross-member between two uprights' (Adam Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714, (Woodbridge, 2002), p.269).
The profile of the side stretchers, with plain tapered shaft is characteristic of an early 18th century date and much more common after 1710.

Caned chairs appeared in England soon after the Restoration of King Charles II, and quickly became popular, being lighter and less prone to dust and pest than their upholstered equivalents, and cheaper too. 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 in large quantities, so much so that in France they were known as chaises à l’Anglaise, and in the German states as englische Stühle. They were usually 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, carvers (who often stamped their work with initials) and caners.

This example demonstrates a relatively late phase in the design of caned chairs, with the caned back enclosed by a moulded 'frame' with almost no carved decoration, unlike earlier 'banister back' chairs with a separate caned panel set between the turned back uprights.

W.16-1926