Writing chair of walnut, raised on four cabriole legs, with rounded, continuous top rail on three turned, columnar supports, the splats between of complex urn form, the drop-in seat covered in velvet

Writing chair of walnut, raised on four cabriole legs, with rounded, continuous top rail on three turned, columnar supports, the splats between of complex urn form, the drop-in seat covered in dark crimson plush. This is a particularly good example of this form of chair, with fine carving on the eagles' heads at the end of each arm.

Design
The four cabriole legs have pad feet; the knees of the front legs are carved wth shells, with double scrolls below, and the spandrel brackets have a deeply scrolling outline, with a raised, rounded edge . The seat rails are straight on the two back faces and serpentine on the front two, with a generously rounded front corner. The front rails are cross-veneered in walnut, on a ground of oak, with the top cut with a simple moulding, that is replicated on the lower edge of the backs. The back rails are of solid walnut. The side and back legs have rectangular sections where they join the seat rails and continue as turned, tapering columns, to support the continuous top rail. This has scrolling ends carved in the form of eagle's heads, with feathering carved along the arms. The top rail is thicker and slightly deeper in the middle section, the back edge carved with gadrooning. Between the uprights are set two flat, solid splats, each cut with a complex outline, of complicated urn form, each heavily chamfered on the back edges.

Construction
The chair is turned and carved, the seat rails with pegged mortise and tenon joints at back and sides, the front leg tenoned up into the joint of the front rails. The front seat rails are lap-jointed and this joint secured with three large screws. The two oak front rails are sawn to shape in the front but shaped behind with deep chisel cuts, made with a curved blade.The front leg is heavily built-up behind the seat rail and carved away, to give good support to the joint, without being visible. The joint between the back leg and the inside of the seat rails is supported with added glue blocks. The splat are tenoned at the base into separate 'shoe' sections, pinned and glued to the top of the back seat rails. At the top they fit within mortises cut on the underside of the top rail. The uprights are tenoned into the top rail, which is made in two sections, lap-jointed in the centre. The 'shoes' have a moulding on the front edge that matches that on the tops of the front seat rail; together they form a frame for the seat, with the seat tucked under the mouldings on the backs, and sitting within those on the front seat rails. The seat frame is of softwood (possibly birch), with four, lap-jointed sections. It is webbed with black-and-white chevron webbing and shows a base-cloth of jute.

Condition
The front spandrel bracket on the right (PL) leg has been replaced. The chair has suffered some worming in the past.

Given by Mrs Maude Marchant

This chair was given to the Museum by Mrs Maude Marchant. In her correspondence with the Museum (Nominal File Ma/1/M748) she recorded that the chair had been left to her for her lifetime by Dr Vernon Jones of 7 Arlington Street (presumably London W1) but that both had wished it to come to the Museum. She also gave a quilt to the Museum (T.17-1924). Mrs Marchant was moving abroad and was selling pieces through Knight, Frank and Rutley of Hanover Square. If the chair were not accepted by the Museum, it was to form part of the sale. The chair was deemed of high quality, although in the Accession Register it was noted that it was 'wormeater, broken and worn' and clearly underwent conservation work after it entered the collections. No other history of the chair was recorded.

This chair was on loan to the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston from 1979 to 1987 (Nominal File MA/1/P2052).

Chairs of this form, which appear to be designed for use in a corner, were in fact designed for use for writing. The forward set front leg supported the writer as they lent over a table or desk, and the set of the arms on the diagonal meant that the chair could be pulled closer to a table without the arms getting in the way. Designs based on this form were made in various parts of Europe as well as in Britain. The continuous top rail may have derived from low-back Windsor chairs, which were developed in the first half of the 18th century and became popular in the 1740s and later for use as library chairs. This is a good quality example, with finely carved eagles' heads and raised bandings on the edge of the spandrels that may derive from Chinese porcelain ornament.

The relationship of such chairs with China is interesting and as yet unexplained. A number of chairs were also made in China (see V&A W.13-1965) and some relate to the straight-fronted chairs with tall, rising, curved backs, that had been traditional in China since the 16th century (see V&A chair FE.72-1983), but with the difference that they set the square seat on the diagonal so that one leg was in the centre front. A pair of such chairs was with the dealer Kit Adams in 2017 and was illustrated in Country Life, 18 October 2017, vol. CCXI, no. 42. In those chairs, the centre of the back is considerably highter than the end of the arms, although the back/arm bow is continuous, as on this chair. Such chairs were known in Europe in the 18th century (miniature versions were made to seat clay figures of merchants sent back from Canton to Copenhagen in 1732; see Craig Clunas, Chinese Furniture (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1988, pp. 24-26, which illustrates FE.72-1983 and F.E. 66 & A-1983). It is difficult to disentangle the influence from Britain to China and vice-versa in the development of the form of this design, which seems to combine the design of 'India back' chairs with a solid splat, newly fashionable in Britain in the 1720s and deriving from Chinese designs, with designs that became standard for Windsor chairs.

For writing. The central leg supported the writer when leaning forward and the set of the arms allowed the chair to be pulled closer to a table.

Chairs of this form look as if they were designed to fit into a corner, but in fact their purpose was for writing. The solid, central leg supported the weight of the writer leaning close to a table or desk. The way that the arms are set on the diagonal, meant that the chair could be drawn closer to the table. Such chairs may have copied their continuous top rails from the form of low-back Windsor chairs, which came into use in the early 18th century. From about 1740, smart and fashionable versions of low-back Windsor chairs became popular for use in libraries. Versions of writing chairs with a central front leg were also made in France and other European countries and a number were also made in China (see V&A W.13-1965).

W.42:1-1924