Japanned beech X-frame armchair with upholstered seat and back.
Identifier
FPF467
Title
Japanned beech X-frame armchair with upholstered seat and back.
Date
1800-1830.
Description
Japanned beech armchair with a curved, scrolled back and an X-shaped frame, with upholstered back panel and seat.
Full Description
This armchair has a scrolled and curved top rail painted with two eagles flanking an urn, and the channelled uprights below are decorated with anthemion (honeysuckle) motifs and simulated ribbing. This is continued on the sides of the slightly tapering arms which have channel-moulded tops echoing the seat side-rails. The arms are supported front and back on spiral-fluted turned sections and have turned discs as terminals. The X-frame is formed as two U-shapes of rounded profile, each made in two sections and joined by two bars which taper from front to back. The legs become turned and tapered with moulded collars and turned feet. Because of the narrow proportions of the chair, the seat is deeply dished. The upholstery is possibly 19th century, the covers are 20th century.
The chair retains its original gessoed and painted surface on a black ground, in the manner of Greek ‘Etruscan’ red-figure pottery, with gilded highlights. The decoration has suffered badly from degradation, as if from bitumen in the paint, but traces of further red and gilded lines and foliate motifs remain on the underframe, along with some bright orangey colour beneath the varnish and burnished gilding. Both this and the anthemion motifs are reminiscent of the decoration on another chair in the Frederick Parker Collection, FPF226.
Although the decoration looks to be English in form, similar chairs were made on the Continent; it has been suggested that this example could be Scandinavian, while a pair of very similar French gilded chairs stamped George Jacob were sold at Artcurial, Paris on 16 December 2019, lot 42.
The X-frame form has been used on chairs and stools since Ancient Egyptian times. In Ancient Rome, as a ‘curule’ chair, the form was recognised as a chair of status, of political or military power. The North Italian late-medieval Savonarola chair was another manifestation. In all of the early forms the X-frame was made to fold, but later chairs tend to be fixed. Its revival in the early 19th century was in part due to the publications of Percier and Fontaine in France and Thomas Sheraton and Thomas Hope in England.
The chair retains its original gessoed and painted surface on a black ground, in the manner of Greek ‘Etruscan’ red-figure pottery, with gilded highlights. The decoration has suffered badly from degradation, as if from bitumen in the paint, but traces of further red and gilded lines and foliate motifs remain on the underframe, along with some bright orangey colour beneath the varnish and burnished gilding. Both this and the anthemion motifs are reminiscent of the decoration on another chair in the Frederick Parker Collection, FPF226.
Although the decoration looks to be English in form, similar chairs were made on the Continent; it has been suggested that this example could be Scandinavian, while a pair of very similar French gilded chairs stamped George Jacob were sold at Artcurial, Paris on 16 December 2019, lot 42.
The X-frame form has been used on chairs and stools since Ancient Egyptian times. In Ancient Rome, as a ‘curule’ chair, the form was recognised as a chair of status, of political or military power. The North Italian late-medieval Savonarola chair was another manifestation. In all of the early forms the X-frame was made to fold, but later chairs tend to be fixed. Its revival in the early 19th century was in part due to the publications of Percier and Fontaine in France and Thomas Sheraton and Thomas Hope in England.
Condition
Original painted surface worn and with considerable losses.
Upholstery possibly 19th century; the covers are 20th century, ripped and worn.
Upholstery possibly 19th century; the covers are 20th century, ripped and worn.
Materials
Beech.
Upholstery.
Upholstery.
Physical Dimensions
H. 85
W. 58
D. 53
W. 58
D. 53
Provenance
Donated to the Frederick Parker Foundation in 2009 by Mr & Mrs Godfrey Curtis, who acquired it at auction ‘from a gentleman’s house in Whittlesford, Cambridgeshire’.
Notes
For comparable X-framed chairs in the Frederick Parker Collection, see FPF026 and its copy FPF377, and FPF490.
See Thomas Sheraton, Cabinet Dictionary, 1803, pl. 45, which shows two ‘drawing-room’ chairs with X-frames.
For further contemporary references to X-frame chairs see Percier & Fontaine, Recueil de Décorations Intérieures, 1801, and Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807.
The Dictionary of English Furniture, 1954, vol. I, fig. 263, illustrates a black and gilt X-frame chair, then at Brympton, Somerset.
See Thomas Sheraton, Cabinet Dictionary, 1803, pl. 45, which shows two ‘drawing-room’ chairs with X-frames.
For further contemporary references to X-frame chairs see Percier & Fontaine, Recueil de Décorations Intérieures, 1801, and Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807.
The Dictionary of English Furniture, 1954, vol. I, fig. 263, illustrates a black and gilt X-frame chair, then at Brympton, Somerset.
