Elm side chair with rush seat.
Identifier
FPF304
Title
Elm side chair with rush seat.
Date
1800-1840
Description
Elm side chair with rush drop-in seat, East Anglian.
Full Description
This elm side chair has a rectangular back with a crest rail inlaid with bog oak stringing. There is a reeded diamond lattice splat with bog oak-inlaid lozenges at the joints of the crossed bars. Square-section back posts rise above the crest rail and are continuous with the back legs, but are narrowed from just above the seat. The back legs are tapered and flared. The drop-in seat frame is pine with a rush seat which is probably original. The chair is raised on square-section front legs which are tapered on both inside faces. The legs are joined by a square-section H-form stretcher with an additional higher stretcher between the back legs.
This chair is East Anglian, an attribution based on its overall construction and details, which were often influenced by Thomas Sheraton’s designs (Cotton, 1990). According to Cotton, the back design is after Thomas Hope, see his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1807). A photograph in the Cotton Archive at the Museum of the Home, London, shows a settle from East Anglia with three similar cross-splats in the back. The same motif was used by Stephen Hazel of Oxford for chairs he supplied to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which are still there and in daily use (ibid.). Elm was the most commonly used wood in East Anglian chairs, and the black inlay is likely to be bog oak, which was readily available in Norfolk.
For a mahogany chair with a diagonal splat see FPF307.
This chair is East Anglian, an attribution based on its overall construction and details, which were often influenced by Thomas Sheraton’s designs (Cotton, 1990). According to Cotton, the back design is after Thomas Hope, see his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1807). A photograph in the Cotton Archive at the Museum of the Home, London, shows a settle from East Anglia with three similar cross-splats in the back. The same motif was used by Stephen Hazel of Oxford for chairs he supplied to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which are still there and in daily use (ibid.). Elm was the most commonly used wood in East Anglian chairs, and the black inlay is likely to be bog oak, which was readily available in Norfolk.
For a mahogany chair with a diagonal splat see FPF307.
Condition
Front left leg joints loose.
Seat corner blocks missing in back right corner and loose in front right.
Losses to bottom of back right leg due to old woodworm activity.
Rush-work is probably original.
Seat corner blocks missing in back right corner and loose in front right.
Losses to bottom of back right leg due to old woodworm activity.
Rush-work is probably original.
Materials
Elm.
Pine.
Bog oak.
Pine.
Bog oak.
Physical Dimensions
H. 91
W. 46
D. 48
W. 46
D. 48
Marks
Chisel marks ‘I’ on back seat rail and ‘III’ on corner of seat frame.
Parker Numbers
OM 6261.
Provenance
Purchased by Frederick Parker & Sons in July 1930 from Foreman.
Notes
B.D. Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge, 1990, pp. 212-231; for a chair with comparable features see p. 231, Fig EA54; for the Hazel chair see p.91, Fig. TV211.
