An armchair of carved walnut, with scrolling legs and arms, the seat and back upholstered in red silk velvet (modern). Italian, Venice, ca. 1685-1710.

upholstery removed 2011 from chairItalian, Venice, 1675-1685, carved walnut

upholstery removed 1968 from chairItalian, Venice, 1675-1685, carved walnut

Summary description:
A large armchair of carved walnut, stained dark brown, with theatrically scrolled fronts legs and arms,heavily raked back, the seat and back upholstered in red silk velvet with silk bell fringe (both upholstery modern).

Decorative Scheme:
The armchair is designed to convey maximum impact to the viewer. The seat and back taper outwards towards the front and the top of the chair, emphasising the perspective and giving an enhanced sense of its enormous scale. The upholstery is covered in modern red silk velvet, trimmed with scalloped bell fringing along the lower edge of the back and the lower edge of the seat rail, the shape of the trimming adding a sense of movement to these otherwise straight lines.

The front legs, arms and arms supports are carved in the form of bold scrolls, moulded in section and transversally ribbed in the centre where they scroll over. The front legs are each formed as an S-scroll, as are the arms, which rest on supports that scroll outwards at the base and meet the back on what appears to be the outer edge of the upholstery of the back, thus increasing the visual breadth of the back. From the mid-height of the front legs, subsidiary scrolls form the outer edge of the front stretcher, meeting at a central cartouche with acanthus leaves wrapping the top edge. The front legs are additionally carved with what appears to be a lashing of scrollwork, as if the ends of the side stretchers were wrapped round the front legs. The side stretchers are simpler in execution but also show scrolls meeting at the centre in a cartouche, the carving on the side stretchers carrying over onto the side faces of the back uprights. These, and the back stretcher are simply rectangular in section and are undecorated.

Structure and Materials

The armchair is constructed of walnut throughout, dark-stained in those areas that are visible. The back uprights are continuous and the front legs continue up to form the arm supports. The stretchers and seat rails are tenoned into the back uprights and the front legs. The arms supports are tenoned up into the underside of the arms and cut with a stepped joint, and the arms are tenoned into the back uprights. The arms scroll outwards at their top end and are built out so that the tenon into the back upright is disguised and the joint appears from the front to be beyond the side frame of the back. The scroll is set forward of the back upholstery by approximately 1 cm, which allows for the fixing of the upholstery.

Where extra elements of wood are required to accomodate the design of the carved scrolls, extra pieces have simply been glued on before carving, as in, for example, the scrolling front feets, which extend well beyond the legs, the scroll at the top of each arm, and the dpeth of carving in the upper half of the front stretcher.

The back is heavily raked above seat height. The back uprights show strong saw marks on the back surface. The back stretcher has been replaced. The joint behind the left side must have broken awayin the past and the new stretcher is now inset into the recess, rather than tenoned in. The top rail and the bottom rail of the back panel are shallower than the back uprights and are tenoned into them close to the front edge.

The front and side seat rails have been extended with newer wood on their underside, making them deeper than the back rail and have also been reduced in thickness from the inside. They are cross-veneered on the front surfaces with walnut. This may have been done at the time of the upholstery that was on the chair in 1856 and may have been done to disguise the areas at the corner of the chair where the uprights might show through the corners, which were only joined by hook-and-eye fastenings. The back corners of the seat have been reinforced underneath with blocks, cut with serpentine curves on their inner faces.

The surviving upholstery webbing is set in open format, with two lateral webs and three running front to back. It shows two different widths, the front lateral web being narrower than all the others but all seem to have been attached at the same time, with hand-made tacks over narrow strips of leather (probably dating from the late 17th century). All the upholstery above the webbing has been renewed (2011). In 1968 it was believed that the surviving upholstery from 1856 was the original but, although the fringing may have survived from that date, the velvet and lining appear to be of the 19th century. There are too many tack holes to suggest only two upholstery schemes before the current one and it is likely that the pre-1856 scheme was done in the early nineteenth century (possibly 1820-40)

This chair was purchased in 1856 for 10 pounds by the South Kensington Museum. There is no record of its earlier history.

The chair was completely re-upholstered in 1968, the existing upholstery (which was then believed to be original but is no longer considered to be so) was taken off and is stored. At that time the cover showed fragments of cord defining the vertical seams of the back. These have not been replicated in the current upholstery as they are considered to be a mid-nineteenth-century detail, consistent with our current assessment of the date of the upholstery removed in 1968. The 1968 work was undertaken by an upholsterer working for Geoffrey Rose Ltd., 77 Pimlico Road, London SW1. See copies of Peter Thornton's sketch, correspondence, estimate and invoice in Green catalogue. FDC 17/07/2006. This upholstery left in place the webbing, which was believed to be original and placed further reinforcing webbing above it.

At the same time, all the joints were opened and re-glued. Wormeaten wood was hardened with Araldite AY 103 HY 987. A missing scroll (bottom centre right) on the stretcher was replaced. Also many small pieces of carving were replaced, and these retouched with colour, the whole being given a wax polish.

This armchair was made for show and would have formed part of a lavishly upholstered suite of chairs, placed along the walls of an important room of a palace in Venice. By about 1680, such show chairs in Venice were extravagantly carved on their visible faces and carving of this exuberant nature became a hallmark of Venetian furniture. The most famous master carver at this time was Andrea Brustolon (1662 - 1732). Such chairs have often been associated with him but his work was generally much more figural. This chair was acquired in 1856 as fine example of the carver's art, although it was observed in 1881 that 'the appearance may be showy but the size is out or proportion, and the chair itself made uncomfortable for use'. Two centuries earlier, show was more important than comfort!

4256:1, 2-1856