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

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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.

Rolling Into the 19th Century!

All along we have been talking about features of the blog chair that could point to it being a 19^th century reproduction.

Photo: SHS

One of these factors is the presence of a sprung seat, which was discussed in the March 1st blog titled Webbing and Through Tenons. Another is the carvings: while they appear to be beautifully composed and in keeping with rococo themes, the overall composition is quite symmetric, instead of asymmetric as an 18^th century object would be.

Photo: SHS

Today we discuss the height of the seat of the blog chair. Seat heights have varied throughout the ages.  As an upholsterer, I have customized seat heights to fit many a client’s specific needs.  They range anywhere from 14” to 21” high; generally the taller seats are more contemporary.  To check myself, I just measured the seat height of a side chair here in my office and it is 18 ½ inches tall at the seat.

As mentioned yesterday, I was fortunate to have spoken with Charles Hummel after a lecture he presented at the UW-Madison last fall. We discussed the castor on the blog chair which I drew on a piece of notepaper and he identified its period of manufacture as 1820-25. 

Illustration by the author, Photo: SHS

So that would date the chair to the 19^th century, right? Again, not so fast! The castor could have been added at a later date!

One way to discern if a castor was added to a chair at a date later than its original manufacture is to examine the place where it was installed. Look for uneven saw and file marks at the tip of the chair leg; dead giveaways that an inexperienced craftsperson was making an adjustment to the circumference of the leg to make it fit the castor.

Does the leg show signs of cracking around the stem of the castor? Again, an inexperienced person would not know that if you drill directly into a chair leg, you weaken the strength of the leg. A stemmed castor would put pressure on the leg every time someone sits on it.

The blog chair castor shows no signs of tampering!

Photo: SHS

Another is to measure the height of the seat of the chair onto which the castor was installed.  If the chair seat is unusually high, the castor is evidently added on.  Trouble is, I wasn’t sure what measurement would be too high on an 18^th century chair since through experience I had seen such a wide variety of seat heights, none of which I researched.

Hummel clarified: if the seat height is greater than 17” at the rail, then the castors were added on. Well guess what?, at the seat rail we have just 17”.  

In this photo the top of the rail is at the the very top of the image under the upholstery.

Photo: SHS

The sprung seat itself reaches a height of 21”. Without the castor, the measurement from the bottom of the foot to the top of the seat rail is 15 ½”.            

The cumulative evidence is pointing directly to the blog chair as a 19^th century reproduction.

We still have more to explore, so don’t go away! 

Theresa

Yummy Furniture and Design

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Let's LOOK at the Similarities

Last week Tuesday I listed the similarities between both the blog chair and its predecessor in Chippendale’s The Gentleman & Cabinet Maker’s Director. Today I will illustrate these similarities with images. Keep your eyes open for subtle variations between the two chairs, which will be discussed next. Also, a few revisions were made to the text to better clarify the points.

- The center splats (center section of the back that extends from the shoe to the top rail) of both chairs are pierced (cut through) numerous times.

  

                        - The center of the top rails rise to crests/peaks.

-Away from the peaks they curve downward and up again into “ears”, at the corner where the top rail meet the side stiles. 

    - On the lower side of the curves stylized shells (nature based) are carved.  

- At the top center of the splat is an oval cartouche composed of mirrored “C” scrolls and topped with stylized shells. This cartouche is a reference to the grotto, a popular 18^th century fascination. (9)

- Framing the cartouche are double “C” scrolls, which are also mirrored and facing the opposite direction of those forming the cartouche.

          - A distinct ribbon is carved in the center of the splat of both chairs.

- A carved rope extends out of the center of the cartouche down to the middle of the ribbon and its knot.

              - Two “C” scrolls uphold the ribbon's bottom, flanking its sides.

-the overall form of the legs is an “S” curve onto which are applied a series of “C” scrolls.

- The knees of the legs are heavily carved with “C” scrolls and stylized shells.

 

-“C” scrolls extend up from the knees at the corner into the seat frame, visually interrupting the straight line of the bottom of the seat.

- The cabriole legs end in a tightly rolled scroll foot. 

All of the above: Photos courtesy of SHS; Illustrations from The Gentleman and Cabinetmaker's Director.

"C" you later!

Theresa

Yummy Furniture and Design

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Footnote
9. Bekerdite, Luke. American Furniture 1996, The Rococo, the Grotto and the Philadelphia high Chest, University Press of New England, Hanover. 112

Sitting Pretty...

The objective of this blog is to present information on period seating furniture in a format that is understandable and enjoyable to both scholars and non-scholars alike.

In short, to make furniture yummy for everyone, everywhere.

Weekly posts will be published on Monday and Tuesday, for now.

We will analyze the manufacturing, stylistic, material and other properties of the objects.  Through this process the objects will be dated to the period in which they were crafted.

It is often through the examination of the manufacturing techniques that we determine the origins of furniture.  Some objects have a mark to help in their identification.  Ceramicists may leave a stamped or written symbol; artists will sign their name.  Some furniture may be stamped and others may have a label, but through experience I have found that most bear no witness to the hands that made them.  Labels were removed by those who worked on them over the years or simply fell off. So, we must often look to manufacturing techniques for clues. 

Analyzing stylistic aspects are also important in period identification as we are not always at liberty to dissect the furniture we find.

The first piece is a Chippendale style ribbon back arm chair discovered in the Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin antiques shop Five Star Antiques. (Shown below.)

 Chippendale style ribbon back armchair

SHS photo

Some topics coming up:

• One from my home chosen for appraisal on Antiques Roadshow  - an early 19th century Empire sofa that was converted into a chair. (Can you imagine that?) 
• And an early 20th century Arts and Crafts chair found in a northern Minnesota cabin.  
• Yet another is a Victorian armchair that defies categorization into any one of the three prevalent styles of that period.  

Keep in mind, if it has four legs and a seat, it may not walk-but it might talk! 

Hope you're sitting pretty, 
Theresa
Yummy Furniture and Design
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