Armchair of 'caqueteuse' type, with tall back, curved arms, turned front legs and trapezoidal, board seat with undulating seat rails, Scottish, 1600-1650

Armchair of 'caqueteuse' type, with tall back, curved arms, turned front legs and trapezoidal, board seat with undulating seat rails. The back with low-relief, carved back panel with a coat of arms (unidentified) between two fluted pilasters, below a cornice and scrolling pediment carved with shell motif. The front and back legs joined with rectangular stretchers (no back stretcher). With a heavy grained (painted) oak finish.

Of joined construction in oak with pegged mortise and tenon joints, with single-piece back uprights, and the front legs continuing as arm supports. Where the arms meet the back uprights, they are carved in a 'bird's mouth', but the fixing method is hidden beneath paint. The stretchers are not tenoned to the legs in the conventional manner, but carved and nailed to meet the rounded profile.

Modifications
The front feet tipped. The seat boards replaced, and with brackets beneath. Left arm clumsily built-up at joint with back upright. The eccentric and crude joint between the stretchers and legs suggests that the chair may have been considerably reduced in height and heavily rebuilt. The right arm has a round mortise on its underside, in an impossible position for an arm support given the shape of the seat, suggesting that it is a replacement.

Scottish armchair, purchased from S.W.Wolsey for 65, 20 October 1952
Notes from R.P. 53/3263

Inventory Description
Armchair; oak - Scottish late 16th or early 17th cent. £65

16/10/53 Transit note
refers to "Scottish armchair with armoural bearings"

19/10/53 Invoice
"Oak armchair with carved coat of arms in the back-panel, turned front legs (painted). Probably Scottish 16th century - including repair to seat - - From Grosvenor House Antiques Fair June 1953"

9/4/54, Letter Edwards to Sir Thomas Inness of Learney
encloses a photograph of the chair (in file) and requests identification of "the arms, believed Scottish, carved and painted on the back". The chair is of seventeenth century "with small repairs…..the date of the painting though apparently early is not certain". The colours are "worn and indeterminate". He also requests the identity of the initials "MTM", apparently marriage initials.

21/5/54, Reply
explains that the initial "M" indicates "Master" and imports a learned person, clergyman, etc, and the shield is 16th century. The writer thinks "the second and third quarters are intended for Stewart". He suggests that the museum go through the "M's" in Burkes General Armoury….He thinks it will not be Mackenzie "….rather some Perthshire family….The initial precludes Rattray".

This armchair was almost certainly the ceremonial seat of the Master of an Incorporated Trade (the Scottish equivalent of an English 'guild'). The coat of arms probably belong to the trade itself, but has not been identified. It is comparable to similar chairs belonging to the Incorporated trades of Aberdeen (at Trinity Hall, Holbourne St., Aberdeen) which date from the first half of the 17th century. The form of such chairs, with high, narrow back and curved arms is characteristic of eastern Scottish chairs that show mark French influence arising from 16th century trade links between the two countries. During the 19th century, they came to be called 'caqueteuse' chairs, from the French word for a gossip.

The chair has been reduced in height and substantially restored and heavily painted with a grained oak finish, possibly to conceal the repairs.

W.52-1953