A Musical Chair for Musical Chairs

 

QUESTION: This summer while vacationing on Cape Cod, I spent some time antiquing. In one of the shops I discovered an unusual chair. It looked like a fancy side chair but the seat had hinges. When I lifted it up, I found a music box. The dealer told me that it was a Swiss Musical Chair, used in the game of musical chairs. What can you tell me about this chair? Where did it originate and who made it? 

ANSWER: While these chairs were popular with the wealthier set in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, they don’t often appear in antique shops. Something like this is most often found in auctions or antique shows.

No one knows for sure who invented the game of musical chairs and when. But historians note that people have been playing it for centuries. Previously called “Trip to Jerusalem.” But when people began calling it Musical Chairs is also unknown. 

Trip to Jerusalem —known in German as “Reise Nach Jerusalem”—was a game played predominately in Germany. So why did people call the game “Trip to Jerusalem?” Some historians theorize that the Crusades inspired the name in the Middle Ages. They believe that the elimination of players who cannot find an empty seat at the end of each round compares to the losses suffered by the Crusaders as they battled the Muslims for control of Jerusalem. This would have made the game more relevant to players at the time. But as the centuries rolled on, that relevancy disappeared, so players started calling the game exactly what it was—a game of musical chairs.

Another less plausible theory, is that the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the Land of Israel, called the Aliyah, inspired the game. During these trips, there was supposedly very limited spaces for Jews on the ships to the Land of Israel. This is supposedly depicted in the game by the number of chairs used. However, neither of these theories has ever been confirmed.

Musical chairs has always been a fun party game. The fact that it began with a "musical chair" seems lost in obscurity. The Swiss and Germans, known for their music boxes, found a novel way to insert one in the seat of an elaborately decorated chair. A hostess placed the chair among others in a circle. The game’s players walked around the circle while the music from the chair’s music box played. Whoever sat on the chair and stopped the music by engaging the switch that turned off the music box, had to leave the game. The last person to remain won.

Swiss and German craftsmen produced these chairs from the 1880s to the 1920s. They  used several kinds of wood, usually walnut plus some exotic varieties for inlays. They usually didn’t sign their chairs. Often, these chairs came in a set with an armchair and side chairs. 

The seat and seatback of these chairs featured intricately inlaid cartouches each depicting various images, including carved leaves and edelweiss, alpine chamois and deer. They placed the music box mechanism, made by another party, under the seat.

Woodcarving brought riches to the villages of Switzerland and the Black Forest region of Germany. It became all the fashion and no English traveler left these areas without having purchased some sort of woodcarving to take back home. As the tourist industry flourished and thrived, so did the carvers, selling their wares to the wealthy tourists.

Though the idea of a Grand Tour began in the 17th century, it wasn’t until the mid 19th century that it reached its peak. The wealthy believed the primary value of the Grand Tour lay in the exposure both to classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent.

The Grand Tour not only provided travelers with a cultural education but allowed those who could afford it the opportunity to buy things otherwise unavailable at home, such as the woodcarvings of Black Forest craftsmen. Grand Tourists would return with crates of art, books, pictures, sculpture, and items of culture, which would be displayed in libraries, cabinets, gardens, and drawing rooms.

This fashion had been set in motion by Queen Victoria's visit to the area in April 1868, and by her subsequent inspiration to build a Swiss chalet at Osborne House and fill it with Black Forest and Swiss carvings.

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The Ultimate in Danish Design

 

QUESTION: When I was a kid, I remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap in a very comfortable chair. It was designed like a big glove and swiveled on a chrome base with four legs. I don’t know what it was called, but I remember him referring to it as Danish modern. Can you tell me anything about this type of chair?

ANSWER: You were very lucky indeed, for you got to experience the ultimate in Danish design, the Egg Chair, designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1957. But before we explore this chair further, it’s important to know how this design style came into existence.

In 1924,. Danish architect Kaare Klint was asked to teach a newly class in furniture design at the Royal Academy's School of Architecture in Copenhagen. Considered the originator of the modern Scandinavian style of furnishing and furniture design which thrived from the 1940s to the 60s, Klint’s influence on even today’s designs is great. 

Using teak, which was plentiful in Denmark, the Danish Modern style began to emerge in the 1920s and soon gained popularity with cabinetmakers in Copenhagen.

After 1945, this unique style achieved worldwide recognition and by the mid-20th century, Danish modern had officially arrived.

The son of Peder Vilhelp Jensen-Klint, the leading Danish architect of the early 20th century, Kaare Klint studied painting and apprenticed to several architects, including his father, before opening an independent furniture design studio in 1917.

He became the first Danish designer to combine function with Danish hand-craftsmanship. His drawings revealed an attention to the needs of the human body, long before the science of ergonomics came into being.

For instance, in order that his sideboards would be the most efficient, he determined the average dimensions of the cutlery and crockery used in a Danish home. Klint then created a case containing the smallest space required for the maximum amount of cutlery needed by a household. Aesthetically, he allowed the unvarnished teak to speak for itself, maximizing its clean beauty by waxing and polishing. And so Danish designers began using natural finishes for their pieces.

Klint is known as the grandfather of modern Danish design. He, more than any other Danish furniture designer, felt that it was important to understand the craftsmanship of the furniture of the past.

He pioneered in anthropometrics, which correlates measurements of the human body to make furniture better suited to man’s physical characteristics, essentially the essence of today’s ergonomics. In 1933, he created a deck lounge chair, which he outfitted with a removable upholstered mat and pillow. 

America's initial fascination with Danish modern furniture was largely the result of Edgar Kaufmann Jr. of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He returned from Europe in 1948 with photographs of chairs designed by another Danish  architect, Finn Juhl. The interest in Juhl's furniture led to a collection designed by him for the Barker Co.

Presented in 1951, the collection introduced American designers to the structural and decorative combining of woods of various colors and grains. Highlights included a teak armchair.

Fruitful collaboration between designers and cabinetmakers led to more industrialized production. By 1950, a few factories in Denmark began producing furniture using purely industrialized methods. The new generation of designers included Arne Jacobsen, whose creations, while organic in nature, used materials such as light metals, synthetic resins, plywood, and upholstered plastics.

Graduating from the Royal Academy in 1924, Jacobsen soon demonstrated his mastery of both architecture and furniture design. With the completion of his Royal Hotel in Copenhagen with all its fittings and furniture in 1960, his talents became widely recognized.

Jacobsen's most commercial success was the Ant Chair, which was available in a number of materials, including natural oak, teak and rosewood veneers, colored finishes or upholstery. Inspired by American legends Charles and Ray Eames, this unique chair was considered revolutionary in 1952, having only three spindly legs, no arms, and a one-piece plywood seat and back. The design of this chair became the basis for the stackable chairs used in hotels and conference centers today. Jacobsen followed the Ant with Series 7, a chair that had four legs and optional arms. Initially designed in 1955, and still being produced today.

Most of Jacobsen’s designs were the direct result of his belief that architecture and furnishings should be totally integrated. Two of his commissions—the Scandinavian Airlines Terminal and the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen—resulted from the creation of the uniquely shaped chairs, the “Egg” and the “Swan.” Designed in 1957, these modernistic chairs featured hi-density, rigid polyurethane foam, upholstered on single-seat shell construction. Both are extremely comfortable while being ergonomically sound and pleasing to look at.

There was a period of time in the middle of the 20th century when Danish designers were the world's most admired. Some of the most talented earned prizes at major competitions, and their works were quickly acquired by top European interior designers and collectors. Today, American designers see them suited to many different kinds of interiors.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the "Antiques of Christmas" in the 2021 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

On a Wing and a Chair

 

QUESTION: Recently I purchased an old wingback chair at a local antique shop. It seems very old to me since it has ball and claw feet, plus it’s upholstery looks good but older in style, leading me to believe it had been done long ago. But I’m puzzled about the springs supporting the upper pillow. Perhaps they were also added at a later time. Can you tell me more about this type of chair and how old this one might be?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, your wing chair isn’t as old as you think. It dates from the Great Depression of the 1930s and would be considered a Colonial Revival piece. What led you to believe the chair was older were its ball and claw feet, made popular by Thomas Chippendale in the mid-18th century in England.

The Chippendale style of furniture remained popular until the end of the 18th century. Interest in it disappeared until the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. The fair inspired furniture makers to re-create the styles of the American Colonial Period until all such furniture became known as Colonial Revival or just “period” furniture. Chippendale created chair designs for comfort, unlike the still, but stylish designs of Federal ones. His wingback chair offered the ultimate in comfort.

But where did the idea for a chair with wings originate? As early as the 17th century, people living in cold weather areas of Northern Europe gathered by their fireplaces on crude wooden benches to keep warm. As the century progressed cabinetmakers added high backs with small wings to these benches. While they were functional, they were far from comfortable. 

Furniture historians believe they originally intended the wings to prevent drafts from reaching the upper body of those who sat in these chairs. The chairs also prevented the intense heat produced by a roaring fireplace fire from affecting the makeup of ladies who might be sitting too close to it. Makeup then was clay-based and tended to run when heated.

Unlike other chairs, wingbacks offered a greater level of comfort and beauty. With the onset of the 18-century, chairmakers began incorporating upholstery into their wingbacks adding comfort and luxury. French furniture makers reinvented the wingback chair in the bergere chair, designed for lounging in comfort with a deeper wider seat.

English furniture maker George Heppelwhite lowered the seat in some of his designs. 

Chippendale molded the wingback design by adding an elegant frame such as oversized wings and scrolling arms to offset the upholstery. However, most of his designs didn’t have a pillow seat. Instead, chair makers stretched the upholstery over the springs and a small amount of padding. The “knees” of the chair were also chunkier and lower to the ground than those of Sheraton and Hepplewhite.

Also called fireside chairs, wingbacks allowed a person sitting by the fireside to catch the heat while eliminating cold drafts from creeping around their back or sides, so chairmakers developed a new kind of chair known as the “Sleeping Chayre.” Not only did this chair have wings, enabling the sitter to stay warm, it’s back could also rachet to different angles for sleeping.

This led to an unusual use in the 18th century. Respiratory diseases were rampant back then, and people commonly believed that it was better for the sick person to sit up to prevent fluid from accumulating in their lungs. So wingback chairs eventually found a home by the fireplace in American Colonial bedrooms. 

During  the 19th century, chairmakers generously stuffed wingbacks with horsehair for an added dose of padding. Covered in velvet or needlework to imitate contemporary French styles, they sported bright patterns and ornate fabric embellishments.

It was often common to find two of these chairs—one for the master and one for the mistress of the house—facing a small round table by the fireplace in the master bedroom of the house. Colonial couples often took their supper, known back then as “high tea,” in the warmth and comfort of their bedroom rather than in the drafty dining room downstairs.

Known and loved for its graceful curves, fluid framework and antique, throne-like feel, the wingback chair remains a symbol of comfort and elegance in modern decor. And it makes a great place to knot off for a quick nap. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Ancients" in the 2021 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Original Cafe Chair

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased two bentwood chairs at an antique shop in a nearby town. Both have woven cane seats and the number “14" pressed into the wood under the rim of the seat. I’ve seen similar chairs in coffee shops and cafes, but I purchased these to use in my kitchen. The cane is in good condition and the chairs are stained a dark brown. Can you tell me anything about these chairs—who made them and how old are they? 

ANSWER: You made a great purchase. Your chairs are commonly known as “bistro” or “cafe” chairs, and while most people think they date from the early 20th century, they actually date back to the 1850s.

Michael Thonet (pronounced “toe-net”), a clever and creative cabinetmaker from Boppard am Rhein, Germany, invented the process for bending wood and as a result created the first pieces of bentwood furniture. He originally made your chairs in 1859, however, his company, which is still in existence, made over 50 million by 1930. So yours could date from the early 20th century. 

Thonet, the son of master tanner Franz Anton Thonet, started out as a carpenter's apprentice in 1811. Eight years later, he opened his own shop. In the beginning, he carved his pieces from European beechwood. 

In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats. His first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl, or Boppard layerwood chair, in 1836. The following year, he purchased the Michelsmühle, the glue factory that made the glue that he used. However, he failed to obtain the patent for his new process in Germany and England in 1940, so he tried again in France and Russia the next year, but again failed. 

The steam engine appeared on the scene around the time that Thonet's was experimenting with his bending process. He discovered that he could bend light, strong wood into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design elegant, lightweight, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly to style trend at the time. His pieces were a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past.

At the Koblenz trade fair of 1841, Thonet met Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who was enthusiastic about Thonet's furniture and invited him to his Vienna court. During 1842, Thonet presented his furniture—particularly his chairs—to the Imperial Family. On July 16 1842: Metternich granted Thonet the right "to bend any type of wood, even the most brittle: into the desired forms and curves by chemical and mechanical means." The Prince granted him a second, nonrenewable 13-year patent on July 10, 1856 "for manufacturing chairs and table legs of bent wood, the curvature of which is effected through the agency of steam or boiling liquids.”

When his first factory in Boppard establishment got into financial trouble, he sold it and moved his family to Vienna, where in 1849, he opened a new factory called the Gebrüder Thonet. In 1850, he produced his Number 1 chair, which he intended to sell to café owners.  

He received a bronze medal for his Vienna bentwood chairs at the London World's Fair in 1851, at which he received international recognition. At the next World's Fair in Paris in 1855, he received the silver medal for his new and improved bentwood chair design. In 1856, he opened a new factory in Korycany, Moravia because of the country’s ample supply of beechwood. 

By 1859, he developed his most famous chair—the Number 14, known as Konsumstuhl No. 14 or Vienna coffeehouse chair No.14—for which he finally received a gold medal at the 1867 Paris World's Fair. It became the first example of bentwood furniture. 

Furniture experts regard the No. 14 chair a design classic. It has been praised by many designers and architects, including Le Corbusier, who said "Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created." 

Thonet produced his No. 14 chair using six pieces of steam-bent wood, ten screws, and two nuts. He made the wooden parts by heating beechwood slats to 212 °F, pressing them into curved cast-iron molds, then drying them at 158 °F for 20 hours. The chairs could be mass-produced by unskilled workers and disassembled to save space during transportation—an idea used today by the Swedish company IKEA to flat-pack its furniture. By the 1870s, Thonet owned offices in almost 20 countries.

The firm’s later chairs used eight pieces of wood and also had two diagonal braces  between the seat and back to strengthen that particular joint.

Today, a No. 14 from the 1860s with a near-perfect seat can fetch about $1,000 at auction.

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Simple Gifts

QUESTION: I always associated the Shakers with rocking chairs. My grandmother had one, although I’m not sure it was an authentic one. But last Fall I took a trip to Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts and discovered that the Shakers invented a whole host of items, many of which we use in improved forms today. What can you tell me about some of their inventions? And why were they so creative.

ANSWER: The old saying “Necessity is the mother of invention” certainly applied to the Shakers. Since this religious sect lived in communities apart from the outside world, they had to produce everything they needed. And this led to them inventing all sorts of things. And although they made and sold great chairs, especially rockers, to the outside world, they produced so much more.

Today, modern wood workshops wouldn’t be complete without a circular saw. Historians trace the origin of the circular saw blade to 1810 and the Shaker community at Harvard, Mass. It seemed that a Shaker Sister witnessed two Shaker Brothers cutting wood using a two-person reciprocating saw, and using her experience at spinning, realized she could improve the conventional way of sawing wood. She conceived a circular metal disk with saw teeth on its perimeter. She discussed it with some of the Shaker brothers who made a prototype blade and used water to spin it.  Today, the circular saw blade has been improved to cut everything from wood to concrete.



Mother Ann Lee founded the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, which is the sect's true name. She claimed to be the female manifestation of Christ. Persecuted in England, she and some followers came to Albany, N.Y., in late 1774. Ultimately they formed self-sustaining communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Indiana, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky.

They became known as Shakers only after arriving in America. It was originally a derisive name given them by outsiders because of the frenzied dancing and shaking that typically took place during their worship services.

The Shakers under Mother Ann Lee believed they should strive for perfection. Using resources efficiently and effectively and finding ways to complete tasks faster and with less effort was a step toward perfection here on Earth.

One of the most common of Shaker inventions was the flat broom. Mother Ann is believed to have said, “There is no dirt in Heaven.” So keeping all the rooms and buildings in Shaker communities clean was a major chore.

And while brooms existed before the Shakers, but they were typically lengths of corn straw tied to a wooden handle. Brother Theodore Bates at the Watervliet, New York, community decided that a broom made with its bristles bound flat and straight would work better than a traditional one, so he devised a way to stitch the straw so as to make it flat when fastened to a broom handle. Shakers everywhere began to make flat brooms, not only for their own use, but to sell to outsiders.

A major obstacle to cleaning floors was heavy furniture. Moving beds in particular posed a problem, so the Shakers invented bed rollers so they could easily move beds to clean beneath them.

Doing laundry for a community of several hundred people was a daunting task. In 1858, Brother David Parker at tire-Canterbury, NH., community designed a steam powered "wash mill." It sped up the laundering process and made the work easier for the sisters assigned to laundry duty.

The Shakers didn't often patent their inventions. but the washing machine was an exception. Not only was it patented, Brother Parker's design won a medal at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Copies of his wash mill were sold W several big hotels.

Shaker herbs and plant seeds were' sought after because of their consistency and high quality. The Shakers were the first to put seeds in small printed pack-ages for home use. The seeds were sold through stores and by mail order.

The Shakers also invented a spike wheel that produced evenly space holes l; for seeds, and it automatically planted seeds, too. It reduced planting time by about fifty percent.

Poplar trees were abundant in some areas, but the wood wasn't useful for either building or burning. The Shakers, !however, found it was an excellent material for baskets. One of the brothers !devised a machine to split lengths of poplar wood into thin splints that could the he used for basket weaving. And Shaker baskets became another product the World" demanded.



Shaker woodworkers developed a machine for making uniform barrel staves, and another for making broom handles of varying lengths.

The Shakers cared for one another, especially the elderly and those that were sick. They invented several things to make life easier for those who were ill. For example, they invented the tilting or adjustable hospital bed. And most Shaker communities had wheelchairs for the elderly and incapacitated. They were rocking chairs with large wheels akin to today's wheelchairs, and a stabilizing wheel or wheels in the back. The finger splint was a Shaker invention, and they created pill making machines for producing herbs and plant potions.

Only a few brothers took care of household chores. The rest were farmers, so they invented several machines to make their jobs easier, including a hillside plow, a horse drawn mowing machine and a thresher machine. Brother Hewitt Chandler of the Sabbathday Lake, Maine, community created the Maine Mower. which mowed hay fields more efficiently than other available equipment. And Brother Daniel Baird at the North Union, Ohio, community developed the revolving harrow used to breakup soil for planting.

And while brothers were busy in the fields, sisters tended to the feeding the community. Feeding several hundred people, three times a day, seven days a week was a daunting task, so naturally invention played a major role.

Cooking on an institutional scale presented its own problems. While a housewife might cook one roast or chicken or bake one pie, Shaker sisters had to prepare dozens, sometimes 60 pies a day. To help with them, for example, They invented a double rolling pin, and it's claimed they could roll twice as much pastry dough in half as much time, verses a conventional rolling pin. Peeling apples is no easy task, so a screw-based apple peeler was created to strip the peel from an apple in a matter of seconds. Once peeled, the apples were cut into quarters using an apple splitter, a spike like device invented by Brother Sanford Russell at South Union, Ky.

 Emeline Hart at the Canterbury, New Hampshire, community designed the Revolving Oven. Numerous pies could be baked simultaneously in this oven.

Sisters also invented the slotted spoon, pea shellers, a cheese press, bread kneading machines and even a potato washer. In 1796, the Shakers produced one of America's first cookbooks.

The Shakers even improved on articles of clothing. One of them, the woolen hooded cloak was a staple of every sister’s wardrobe to protect them from the cold blasts of winter. As with the broom, they sold these to the outside world to make money to buy supplies they needed.

Shaker communities attracted some of the best craftspeople and cooks but unfortunately they believed in celebacy. And that didn’t help their future.

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Going Retro

QUESTION: I recently purchased a one arm chair that has a metal stamp that says “The B.L. Marble Chair Company, Bedford, Ohio.” It’s a cool mid-century design and is walnut and leather. Do you know anything about this chair and what it may have been used for?

ANSWER:  Barzilla L. Marble founded the B.L. Marble Chair Co. in 1894, after working at several other chair comp. His grandfather operated a chair factory in Marbletown, New York, and others in his family likewise made chairs, so it was natural for Marble to do so. He formed a brief partnership with A.L. Shattuck in 1885, but struck out on his own nine years later.

His company produced fine wooden chairs made for comfort and elegance that were made to last. Up until 1910, it produced chairs for the home, but during World War I, Marble added a division to make wooden aircraft propellers for the military.

By 1921. Marble’s company had outgrown its small wooden buildings and construction began on new brick buildings which had more than four acres of floor space. After Marble died in 1932,  A. D. Pettibone became president of the company and part owner. In 1953 Pettibone sold his interest in the Marble Chair Company to a group of local investors. Eventually, another man, also named Pettibone but not related to the first, bought the company, and it became extremely successful.



The company produced one-arm “modern” chairs most likely in the mid-60s under the second Pettibone owner. Furniture makers intended one-arm chairs, both originally in the 1870s and then in the 1960s as chairs to be placed in a corner. Today, most people would refer to these 1960's chairs as “retro” in style.

But exactly does retro mean? According to the Oxford University Press Dictionary, it means,”imitative of a style from the recent past.” Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, most likely from the 1940s through the 1960s. Currently, eBay offers over 468,000 different retro items.

People born between the 1940 and 1950 became teenagers during the 1950s and 1960s. And because those two periods provide memories for many of them, anything retro is in, whether it’s furniture, accessories, clothing, and collectibles, especially those related to the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Life in the 1950s was conservative, but changes were about to take place. Such innovations as Velcro, Tang, frozen foods, transistor radios, Frisbees and the hula-hoop began to appear. Bill Haley and the Comets rocked around the clock while jukeboxes filled every burger joint and ice cream parlor with the sounds of the young.

Furniture and accessories, especially the ubiquitous pole lamp, featured streamlined styling in   avocado and gold. By 1957 there were 47 million T.V. sets in America’s homes, four times the number of seven years before. Families began to watch T.V. shows like “I Love Lucy” incessantly. They even ate in front of the T.V., thus necessitating the invention of the T.V. tray and comfortable casual furniture without frills.

Later on in the 1960s, the space race captured everyone’s attention as astronauts walked on the Moon and teens danced the twist to the music of Chubby Checker and sang along to Beatles’ tunes. More innovations such as lava lamps and electric knives caught on eventually providing the retro movement with lots of collectibles.

Coming up in #TheAntiquesAlmanac in October will be a special edition dedicated to the Retro style. In the meantime, enjoy the 2020 Winter Edition with the theme “The Wonders of the Industrial Age.”

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about vintage games in the 2019 Holiday Edition, "Games, Games, and More Games," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Many Faces of Victorian Whimsy

QUESTION: My great aunt left me a very unusual chair, probably because I admired it when I went to visit her. The chair has a grotesque face carved into its back. It’s legs are curved and there are groves carved into the ends of the arms. Can you tell me anything about my chair?

ANSWER: What you’ve been admiring and now own is a bit of Victorian whimsy. The Victorians loved decoration, the more fantastic the better. This love of whimsy can be traced to the English Romantic Age.

Bored with the classicism and artistic restrictions of the Age of Reason, Romantic artists found their inspiration in the Medieval Age, albeit an idealized one. Crumbling castles, enchanted realms, and magical beasts filled their art. The Victorians loved this and when English draftsman Augustus Charles Pugin published his Specimens of Gothic Architecture in 1821, the Gothic revival was born. Wealthy English families built Gothic-style houses and filled them with furnishings reminiscent of castles and medieval cathedrals. As time went on, carved plants, animals, and mythical creatures began to appear on the furniture they used to decorate their homes.

A wave of whimsical furniture soon appeared in England and swept across the Atlantic where it flooded houses from Boston to San Francisco. By the end of the 19th century, parlors and bedrooms overflowed with fabulously carved furniture. Griffins supported sideboards, lions roared from the pedestals of dining room tables, and North Wind faces whispered from the backs of chairs.

The most curious item produced in America toward the end of the 19th century was the Roman-style,or cross-frame, "face chair." In design, the chair resembled the folding 14th-century Italian Savonarola chair. 

This odd little chair became a must-have item for American parlors. A backrest onto which grotesque faces or carved fruit had been carved, stood upon simply fashioned legs, gracefully curved arms, and a curved seat. The most common face was a stylized North Wind blowing wooden tendrils of” "wind" from its mouth.

Other faces included grinning ogres, laughing gremlins, and satyrs with wickedly out-thrust tongues. Neptune and the Green Man, or foliate head of Celtic mythology, were also popular subjects. It isn’t surprising that the stone ancestors of these faces stare down from the tops of medieval cathedrals and guildhalls across Europe.

The origin of the faces is fairly easy to trace. Woodcarvers arriving in America from Germany in the mid-18th century found work in Midwest furniture factories. They brought their traditions and mythologies with them. In a way, their carvings were like fairy tales and folk tales fashioned in wood to delight and entertain.

Heywood Wakefield of Wakefield, Massachusetts, and Chicago and Stomps Burkhardt of Canton, Ohio, were just two of the many furniture manufacturers to produce face chairs. Workman would roughly carve the faces using machines, then finish them off by hand. They fashioned the backrests from oak or mahogany while they used less expensive wood, stained to match the backrest, for the rest of the chair. While they lavishly carved the faces, they kept the rest of the chair’s design relatively simple. Sometimes, they carved grooves into the ends of the arms to suggest fingers, and sometimes they turned the chair’s stretcher bars.

By the early 20th century, face chairs had all but died. As time progressed, the design pendulum swept from sumptuous Victorian ornamentation through the more restrained carving of the Eastlake period to the even cleaner lines of Mission-style and Art Deco furniture. Unfortunately, even paint couldn’t modernize these chairs, so most of them ended up in attics and basements. Many people simple destroyed them.

A One-Armed Chair

QUESTION: We bought an old farmhouse three years ago and this chair has been in our barn. What can you tell me about it?

ANSWER: What you have is a one-arm ladies chair made in the Eastlake style from 1870-1885. And, yes, it was part of a parlor set, which usually included a love seat, a two-armed gentleman's chair, and a one-armed ladies' chair. Furniture manufacturers made these chairs with one arm and low to the ground because the ladies of the time wore dresses with lots of fabric in their skirts, covering over one or more petticoats. Eastlake suggested that chairs be made low to the floor so that ladies could remove their shoes without having to bend over in an un-lady-like manner. The new middle class housewives loved it.

The Eastlake style grew out of the beginning of the Aesthetic Movement which later evolved into the Arts and Crafts Movement. Charles Lock Eastlake, himself, wasn't a furniture maker but wrote a book, Hints on Household Taste, published in England in 1868 and the United States in 1872, which called for the manufacture of simple sturdy furniture and gave suggestions on how to decorate a home in a simple, refined manner. He was a noted, trend-setting British architect, author, and lecturer, and by the time his book hit booksellers in America, it was an instant hit with middle-class housewives who wanted to keep up with the trends in home decoration.

Although Eastlake furniture is technically considered Victorian, it breaks away from the excessive high relief carving, classical elements, and numerous curves of other styles produced during this time. Eastlake’s reformed style offered the first glimpses of modernism and was on exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

In contrast with other Victorian styles of furniture produced in America featuring classical motifs, Eastlake furniture was more geometric and incorporates softer curves. Though some pieces may have incorporated Renaissance Revival and medieval influences, they don’t overwhelm the pices.

A number of manufacturers made this furniture and most didn’t mark their pieces. Using oak, cherry, rosewood, and walnut, they often emphasized wood grains. Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell what type of wood manufacturers used because of the dark varnishes they used to coat the surface.

In contrast to Arts and Crafts furniture, Eastlake pieces weren’t completely lacking in ornamentation and decorative elements. But the ornamental carving on these pieces was lightly incised rather than deeply carved. Generally, new Eastlake furniture came in a broad range of quality and price levels.

It's All in the Details

QUESTION:  I have what I was told is an antique Chippendale China Trade Corner chair which is unfortunately in very poor condition—the finish has been removed and it’s missing a side panel . It does have what appears to be an original leather seat cover. I’m curious to know if a piece of furniture in this condition is worth anything, and if it’s worth restoring? Also, I’m curious about the history told to me many years ago by a dealer. He seemed to think the chair was a Chippendale copy that was made in Asia (china) and sent to America by clipper ship. That seemed like a plausible story at the time. What do you think about that?  

ANSWER: From its construction and the lack of detailed carving, I can tell that your chair isn’t an 18th-century Chippendale but a Colonial Revival chair from the 1880s or 1890s. Whether or not it came from China, I’m not sure. The carving on the knees of the legs and on the rail at the top of the chair are shallow, more incised with a router than carved with a chisel.

The goal of Colonial Revival pieces was to make them in the style of the original, but usually the manufacturer was a bit lacking in correct details. And it’s the details that distinguish authentic, handcrafted reproductions, such as those commissioned by Winterthur Museum and Colonial Williamsburg, from poor examples made in factories.

The China Trade flourished from the end of the American Revolution into the 19th century. Wealthier Americans, not wanting anything British, sought items made in China which simulated those they had previously imported from England. High on the list were fine porcelains, especially the blue and white variety. And while the Chinese also made and exported some furniture imitating the designs of Thomas Chippendale, they didn’t create exact reproductions, but only approximations of his designs. In any event, what they did produce was elegant and first rate, not a cheap knock-off.

This corner chair, while possibly made in China, most likely appeared toward the end of the 19th century, perhaps in the 1890s. What differentiates it from authentic 18th-century examples is the lack of detail.

Before looking at this chair, however, it’s important to know the difference between an exact, authentic reproduction, like those commissioned by Winterthur Museum and Gardens or Colonial Williamsburg, and the stylized ones of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Skilled craftsmen often create the former to exact detail using handcrafting tools and original techniques while factory workers using machines produce the latter for the mass market.

Details on authentic reproductions reflect the originals. But those on stylized versions are either lacking or not rendered sharply. Carvings, usually done by routers, aren’t as sharp and three-dimensional as those on the original pieces.

For example, the chair rail on this corner chair ends in a smooth curved knob while the same ends on an authentic Chippendale corner chair are ergonomically carved to fit the middle two fingers of each hand, thus making it easier for a person to stand up from the chair. Also the added portion on top of the rail is smooth and elegant on the original and crude and carved lightly on this one.

This chair needs major restoration. However, the cost may be higher than the chair is worth. The leather seat isn’t worth saving. Its too damaged. However, you could have the chair upholstered again in leather. The only way to replace the missing back splat is to have a carpenter make an identical one, a job that isn’t cheap. If it were an authentic 18th-century piece, then it would be worth saving.