Merrily we roll along....

Another clue to the blog chair’s date of manufacture OR update is castors on its feet. We’ve all seen a great deal of castors/casters on a variety of furniture. The Victorian era springs to my mind when I think of the widespread use of the small wheels fixed to the bottoms of furniture legs allowing them to be moved easily. However, while working my way through Upholstery in America & Europe from the 17th Century to World War I, Wallace Gusler, Leroy Graves and Mark Anderson include a photo of an 18^th century back stool with simple, unadorned castors on all four feet in their article on an 18^th century upholstery technique.(11) Cool!

I own two chairs I’ve identified as Victorian with castors.  One is a Rococo Revival piece and another that I will call neoclassical revival because of the urn shaped splats in the space between the arm and seat rails plus other identifying qualities. It is the neoclassical chair that sports a castor similar to the blog chair.

 

 While the top base is square and the castor here is round, both have a beaded trim along the top of their plates; the plate being the piece of metal onto which the chair leg rests. This could mean that both sets of castors are 19^th century. But does it follow that both chairs are of the 19th century?

After making this connection between the two chairs, I had to find a way to verify my hunch.  Luckily I attended a lecture on the Dominy Craftsmen at the UW-Madison last November 2010, presented by Charles Hummel, retired (but still working) Curator Emeritus at Winterthur. Per Hummel, castors sporting little beads of brass around the edge of the castor plate were first made around 1820-25. Prior to that, decoration was simpler, sometimes composed of a simple reeded trim. 

Hummel dated the castors from the sketch I provided him and shown below.

Sketch by the Author, Photo SHS

If the castors are of the 19^th century as is the upholstery technique, is the pendulum beginning to swing in the direction of the blog chair also being a 19^th century object?  Tune in tomorrow when we discuss this exciting development. 

And here is my conversation with Charles Hummel which was recorded and posted at the UW Material Culture Blog!

Theresa

Yummy Furniture and Design

theresamhs@sbcglobal.net

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11. Cooke, Edward S. Jr., Upholstery in America and Europe from the 17^th C to WWI., Journal Article within the text: Wallace Gusler, Leroy Graves and Mark Anderson, The Technique of 18^th-Century Over-the-rail Upholstery, New York, W.W. Norton & Co. 90.