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The Development of the English Walnut and Early American Colonial Furniture Chair Early English and American Colonial Furniture of Seventeenth Century Type

Change in Chair Design

The restoration of the monarchy, in 166o, witnesses the birth of a distinct trade, that of the chair-maker. A comparison between the oak and the walnut models (the former still persist until almost the close of the seventeenth century) will show totally distinct traditions and methods in each. Foreign influences, from the Low Countries, France, Portugal and Spain, undoubtedly account for much of this, but not for all. New design-motives from abroad, and the use of a new wood, might both effect considerable changes, but not in tradition. The old era of the heavily-made chair had come to an end, and a new race of makers had come to the front.

If chair and early American colonial furniture making had still been the province of the one trade, we would expect to find the same evolutionary process in both, but at the period when the typical Restoration walnut chair, with its spiral turned balusters, arm supports, legs and stretcher rails, was being made as a novelty, the older heavy court cupboard had not gone out of fashion. It was inevitable that the advantages, from the points of appearance, cost and movability, should be quickly appreciated, and we find this new chair-making trade turning its attention to tables and similar pieces, and even to wall furniture such as cabinets and escritoires.

With walnut, also, comes the age of veneering (which, in itself, involves a tremendous modification of method) and this develops again into the era of marqueterie. It is with the chairs of the period from 166o to about 1725 that the most rapid evolution takes place, which fact, in itself suggests that the trade was new and receptive to fresh impressions. The Early Restoration chair and the early American colonial furniture chairs , intrinsically, constitutes a considerable departure from the older and still persisting oak models.

The change really begins in the latter days of the Common. wealth, with the introduction of the slide-rest as an adjunct to the lathe, which renders spiral turning easy, exact and practical. Thus, we get, with this new tool, a partial reversion to the older "turneyed" chair of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These turned chairs of the Cromwellian period have their counterparts in the early productions of New England, which one would expect, considering the rationality of the new settlers. For the same reasons, or on account of religious prejudices, the Restoration models were rarely copied, but a revulsion took place before the race of the Stuarts came to an end in 1689 (with the flight of the last of that unstable and treacherous family to the Court of Saint Germain) as the tall-back chairs of 1685-9 are freely copied in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in early American colonial furniture.

Characteristics of Restoration Chairs in Early American Colonial Furniture Chairs.

The first Restoration models are lightly, but soundly constructed. Between the twisted balusters of the back, the cresting rail (often carved with the royal crown) is tenoned, and even the squares of the front legs are taken up beyond the seat, the framing of the latter being notched between them. The legs, in addition, are firmly tied with cross rails, and in the first models, a front stretcher, pierced and carved, is introduced between the front legs, just below the seat-framing. It is curious, and instructive, to trace the evolu­tionary change through which this stretcher rapidly passes. In a few years it is placed lower down, then tenoned between the cross railing instead of the legs, then is made in the form of a crested X, tying all four legs together, and, in the first years of William III it becomes flat, and in serpentine shape, but still retaining its X form. It then disappears entirely, being replaced, for a time, by the older form of turned cross railing, until in the first mahogany years, the legs of chairs cease to be tied together in any way, but stand free. Anticipating, for a moment, a later chapter in this book, the cross railing is again revived by Chippendale, in his square-leg models, and by Hepplewhite and on early American colonial furniture. The first notable change in the legs of these early walnut chairs is the introduction of the Flemish curve and double C scroll for the shaping of the legs. The next is the fashion for abnormally tall backs - a short-lived one, by the way, as it must have been discovered that these chairs had a marked tendency to overbalance and to fall backwards. The next modification in construction (and a bad one) was to dowel the cresting rails of the backs on to the outer balusters, instead of tenoning them between the squares, as with the early Restoration examples. At the same period, the seat frames were simply pegged to the front legs, a weak method which, luckily, was not possible in the case of an armchair, where the front legs had to be prolonged to act as arm supports with the seat fixed between them.

The Flemish curve tends to disappear in the early Orange ears, after 169o, being replaced by turning, beginning with the Portuguese bulb, which, in turn, rapidly develops into the inverted pup, a detail borrowed from Holland. At the same time the whorled Spanish, (or Braganza) foot changes to the flattened "bun" form, the latter being extensively used for cabinets and tables. In these early Orange years, also, the fashion begins for making the backs of chairs either as a complete frame, solid upholstered or carved, or with several pierced and carved splats connecting the top rail with the back of the seat. At the same time there is another form, borrowed from France in early American colonial furniture, where the back panel is entirely filled with pierced and carved ornament, in the resigning of which the influence of the Louis XIV style is very evident.

Early American Colonial Furniture Design Changes About 1700

The dawn of the eighteenth century witnesses a radical change in chairs. The smooth cabriole leg is introduced in its perfect form. It had been used, in an embryonic, and disconnected form, some years before, but the perfectly smooth cabriole belongs to the first years of the reign of Anne. With it goes the smooth hoop-back, where the top rail continues down to the seat-frame in an unbroken. The arms of chairs and settees follow the same fashion. In these early hoop-back chairs, there is generally one shaped broad central splat, which is nearly always veneered with burr or finely figured walnut. It is the first time that veneering is introduced into English and early American colonial furniture chair construction.

Judging from the extreme rarity in early American colonial furniture of marqueterie inlay in chairs, the fashion must have left the chair-maker comparatively unaffected, another proof that he worked on distinct lines as compared with the maker of other furniture. Lacquered chairs are more plentiful, but far from being general. Throughout the later seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries the same evolutionary factors never appear to govern chairs and wall furniture at the same time or in the same way.

In the first years of George I changes in chair-forms also proceed with bewildering rapidity, but there are no influences from Germany apparent (unless it be in the sole instance of the lion furniture) which one might have expected with the accession of the first of the House of Brunswick. The older hoop-back still persists, but begins to be more elaborated. I have styled this early Georgian period, in another hook*, the decorated Queen Anne, for want of a better name. We get the lion or satyr mask, and the lion's paw, and the eagle's head is also found in many of these later early American colonial furniture walnut examples.

Introduction of Mahogany

MAHOGANY comes into general use shortly after 1725, but changes in furniture, and especially in chair-types, are not as pronounced as one would have expected. True, we get again a reversion to the older solid construction, without veneering, but this does not persist for long, the introduction of the finely figured woods bringing the veneering press, the caul and the hammer again into use. The lion period, from about 1730 to 1740, is more of a mahogany than a walnut style, but examples can be found in both woods. This manner, in turn, is supplanted by the "cabochon-and-leaf" ornament, in conjunction either with the earlier ball-and-claw, or the leaf-carved foot, and the next progression, in its order, carries us into the manner of the early American colonial furniture Chippendale school.

It is posterity alone which has segregated all these various manners into distinct styles. Actually, the progression from the one to the other is gradual, and rarely, if ever, continuous. Thus we get late features and earlier details in the one piece, as an examination of the examples illustrated in this chapter will show. At no period in the whole of the history of  English and early American colonial furniture and furniture were fashions so arbitrary that earlier motives did not persist. The same details, used at different periods, do vary, however, in a certain minute measure, but it requires the trained eye of the expert to detect the distinction.