17th Century Furniture (part 30 of 31)

Chairs (continued)


New England Side Chair
Upholstered and imported leather, this chair is made of native maple. This form is properly termed a 'back stool', and is very similar to English examples, although these would have been made of oak.

 

Spanish Armchairs

Pair of 17th Century Spanish Baroque carved walnut arm chairs, each leather back and padded seat set with sizeable floriform nail heads, unique apron featuring an intricate carved and pierced design, detailed with unusually scrolled side stretcher.

French Armchair

The front legs of this Louis XIV walnut armchair are turned, handmade furniture, and linked with H-stretchers. The seat and back are covered with gros point floral needlework fabric.

Spanish/Italian 'Throne' Chair

17th century Spanish or Italian walnut ‘throne ‘ chair, with gilt finials and front feet, of typical ‘sleigh’ construction; retains original leatherwork and some of the embroidery.

American Armchair

Early American colonial non fitted furniture Slat back chairs were a variation of the all-turned chair. Two specimens having the more ample turnings that are associated with the turnery of the 17th century may be seen at the American Museum in Britain. A slat back armchair at Winterthur has the higher back and the ball-and-disc turnings that characterized some of these chairs after about 1700. That tall slatted chairs date at least from the first years of the century is indicated by an oil sketch of about 1705 in which Johannes Kelpies is shown seated at a table in one of these chairs. All sorts of turned chairs were produced in America from this early period down to the present century, and assigning the usual two to three decade period of furniture manufacture must be qualified in view of the continued popularity of these early American colonial furniture chairs and of the turner's or chairmaker's ability to turn out' most of the shapes made by his predecessors.
More kinds of craftsmen were engaged in manufacturing chairs and other seats than any other form of furniture: joiners, turners, carpenters, cabinetmakers, chairmakers, cane chairmakers, upholsterers, and possibly carvers were capable of producing part or all of certain kinds of early American colonial furniture seats. The proliferation of crafts began occurring at about the time of the Restoration in 1660, so that the older idea of the maker of chairs as principally a joiner or turner rapidly became less tenable. For example, English upholsterers sold upholstered seats like the chair illustrated with a turkey­work back and seat to buyers in England and the colonies.

English Side Chair

A walnut side chair, late 17th century the scrolling top rail over a caned back splat between slender turned and tapering uprights over a caned seat on turned front supports, terminating in a scroll foot, united by a turned 'H' stretcher