Mahogany chair back with scrolled splat.

FPF274

Mahogany chair back with scrolled splat.

1790-1800

Mahogany chair back with tablet crest rail and scrolled splat.

This mahogany chair back has a tablet crest rail inlaid with satinwood panels bordered by ebonised stringing. The splat is formed of three pairs of back-to-back carved C-scrolls with central paterae and rosettes at the tips, with three vertical wheatear-styled shafts between them. There is a lower cross rail which is also inlaid to match the tablet above. The posts are tapering and moulded, continuous with the square-section flared back legs. There are slots for arms and seat rails.

This chair back is modelled after a design by George Hepplewhite (c. 1727-86), published posthumously in A. Hepplewhite & Co., The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, third edition 1794, Plates 12 and 13. The accompanying text in the 1794 edition states: ‘… designs for chair backs, proper to be executed in mahogany or japan; some of them applicable to the more elegant kind of chairs with backs and seats of red or blue morocco leather…’. These Hepplewhite designs were new to the third edition of The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide and were a response to the fashionable taste of the period influenced by the Louis XVI style in France; the chair backs and seats were typically squarer in shape (Joy, 1994).

Good condition with early patina.

Mahogany.
Satinwood.
Ebony or ebonised stringing.

H. 83
W. 43
D. 5

6232

Purchased by Frederick Parker & Sons from Heals in 1929 for £3 6s.

Ed. E. Joy, Pictorial Dictionary of British 19th Century Furniture Design, Woodbridge, reprinted 1994, pp. 54-55 and p. 91, Plates 12 and 13.