Rococo AND Colonial Revival?

 

As mentioned in the previous blog, Charles F. Hummel of Winterthur wrote me to say that since the blog chair used plied wood in its back it was definitely Rococo Revival. Today I propose that while the blog chair is in that category, it holds a dual identity. Since it is an obvious remake of an 18th century Chippendale style ribbom back chair, it falls into the additional category of Colonial Revival.

19th C Ribbon Back Chair. Photo by SHS

18th C chair in Plate XV in TG&CMD

          It is generally thought that the colonial revival period began around the time of America’s centennial.  Interest in period furnishings was spurned by the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. During this time all periods of American colonial furniture; Mannerist, William and Mary, Queen Anne, Georgian, Chippendale, Federal, Neoclassical and Empire were simply lumped together into one category called colonial.(13)

Furniture adaptations on decorative and structural elements were called improvements.(14) For instance, on the blog chair there are three improvements that spring to mind.

1.The use of the three layer plied wood back to allow the chair’s back to curve and fit the contour of the human body. 

Photo: SHS

 

2. Springs in the seat, to make it “give” under weight and be more comfortable. 

Photo: SHS

3. Castors on its feet to allow it to move more freely about the room. 

Photo: SHS

This begs the question; where these changes in fact improvements?

1.a. Since the pieces of wood used to make the three plies are wider and taller than the individual parts of the tri-part back used in the 18th century, they would not be a measure to save raw materials. But the curve in the back would add comfort.

Photo: SHS

2.a. The springs used in the seat are stiff because they are too tightly compressed. They offer no additional comfort over an un-sprung seat.

Photo: SHS

3.a. The castors on the feet would definitely allow the chair to be moved more freely about a room.

Photo: SHS

 Some of these changes were improvements; others not so much. What I will say is that human inventive genius was illustrated through the multitude of technological  advances pioneered during the Victorian period when the blog chair was made. For more on this subject I suggest the text in Footnote 13. 

Theresa

Yummy Furniture and Design

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Footnotes
13. Edgar Mayhew and Minor Myers. The Eclectic Decades: 1865-1895 In A Documentary history of American Interiors: From the Colonial Era to 1915. New York, Scribner's. 258-262
14. Ibid

More Evidence

Today I will examine the structure of the carved back of the Chippendale style ribbon back armchair.  As mentioned earlier, its design closely follows that of a ribbon back armchair illustrated in Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, plate # 15.

Plate 15, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, third edition.

But does the construction technique of the blog chair's back follow that put forth in the Director?

There is no written mention of construction techniques in Chippendales’ Director. John T. Kirk, a Guggenheim fellow, curator, professor emeritus at Boston College and author on American furniture touches on the construction of the splat of an authentic 18^th century Philadelphia Chippendale style chair in his American Furniture; Understanding Styles, Construction and Quality. Here he is speaking of one of the famous Cadwalader chairs. “The splat area is made of three sections: a horizontal-grain piece connects the stiles; vertical parts connect it to the top rail and the shoe.”(12)

To clarify, look at the illustration below.

Plate 15, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, third edition.

The horizontal piece (1) is in the center of the back; it includes the bow and the ribbon tails and connects to the side pieces called stiles. The vertical parts are (2) above and (3) below the ribbon. Kirk mentions three pieces. I’m going to assume that each of the pieces was made of solid wood because in all my research of 18^th century furniture solid wood was always the medium used.  Also, Kirk would have mentioned if it was not.   

Here is a photo of the ribbon back blog chair. In the frontal view, the center splat is all one piece.

Photo SHS

Further, the top rail is an extension of the splat. It is joined to the stiles at about 2” down from the top of the ears. Look closely, the joint is about 1/4" below the carving.  Also there is an ever so slight color change between the two pieces. 

Photo SHS

              This is a bird’s eye view of the blog chair.  

Photo SHS

 You are looking directly at the splat (left) and top rail (right). For perspective note the chair seat in the background. A joint of the splat to the rail would be a seen as a vertical line towards the right of this image. There is no joint. Instead, two horizontal lines that are lighter than the rest of the wood finish grab your attention. This is paint that was meant to cover the fine lines of the three plied layers of the back. So the back splat IS made of three pieces of wood in an entirely different configuration than the 18th century original.

           Now look more closely at the detail photo below.

Photo SHS

Notice the fine line between the second and third layer of wood?

Plywood is hardly something that jumps to mind when thinking of good quality furniture, but in 1856 John Henry Belter obtained 4 patents for the process of laminating layers of rosewood together to construct the deeply carved and curved backs of the Rococo Revival seating furniture for which he is famous.  Many of Belter’s pieces are extant and now reside in museums.   

The survival of the blog chair is also testament to the success of the process. This Victorian reproduction was probably made around the time of America’s centennial, when Colonial Revival was all the rage. It is still in good shape.

And to wrap things up tonight, a word (or two) taken from an email from Charles F. Hummel.

“The use of three-plied wood would signify to me that the chair is definitely rococo revival. John Henry Belter, although not the first cabinetmaker to do so, is generally credited with making the use of plied wood common as a means of cutting  intricate designs in seating furniture.”

Theresa

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12. John T. Kirk, American Furniture Understanding Styles, Construction and Quality, New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 116.

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

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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.