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The Chairs in the Home The History of the Origin of the Design Period Known as Early American Colonial Furniture

The chairs in home continued from previous page.

These are the points to be studied in a chair:

1. How it is put together, remembering the constant strain to which a chair is subjected.
2. The legs, (a) their shape, taking first the front and then the back pair ; (b) their feet ; (c) their stretchers, if there are any, whether plain, turned or carved.
3. The seat, whether wooden, upholstered, or caned or made for a cushion.
4. The back, whether solid or pierced. The shape of the top, if the back is pierced ; the nature of the filling is important.
5. The kind of decoration given to parts of the frame-turning, inlay, veneer, carving, lacquer, paint or gilding, metal mounts or needlework or canework.
6. The kind (or kinds) of wood used.

The solid panel-backed chairs were made until the end of the Commonwealth. They were still most obviously important pieces of furniture, they were master's chair, whether the master were head of the family, Master of a Guild or City Company, whether he were Lord of the Manor or Master of a School or College. Other kinds of chairs were beginning to be made for special purposes in wealthy houses. Light chairs with straight backs, called " gossiping" chairs, were made for the lady's withdrawing room. Then Queen Elizabeth set the fashion of wearing enormously spread skirts or farthingales and "farthingale" chairs with no arms had to be made so that ladies could sit down. James I had an ill-shapen body and wore padded clothes to hide his deformity. Luxuriously upholstered furniture with deep cushions and heavy fringes had a passing vogue. in the tracing of the origins of the style known has early  American colonial furniture.

Then came the Civil War beteeen Charles and the Parliament, putting a temporary stop to chair-making as to other things and when the war was over everything for a while was controlled by the serious-minded Puritans and the luxury-loving Cavaliers were either dead or in exile. The chairs, either made at home or imported from the Low Countries, were not decorated, except for a little turning, and had plain leather backs and seats. Wood-turning does not seem to have offended the Puritan eye, and about this time the most difficult work of all, the "barley-sugar twist" was perfected. Two new materials, also, were being introduced. The one was WALNUT wood, and the other rattan CANE, which was most likely introduced by the East India Company (xxii).

Then Charles II came back in 166o. He loved beautiful things. The decorator was encouraged and not restrained. Walnut could be carved across the grain and pierced in a way that was impossible with oak. Beautiful chairs were made with tall, backs and seats filled with net-like canework, with sides, cresting and the front stretcher elaborately carved. Instead of canework, the back was filled sometimes with "slats", and when these slats were arranged crosswise instead of up and down the chair is called a "ladder-back".

 

Plate XXIII
Panel-Back Chairs

French Enclosed Chair Circa 17th Century

With Framed Back (Wareham, Dorset) Circa 17th Century

With Crested-Top Piece Circa 17th Century

With Ear-piece Aveley, Essex Circa 17th Century