OAK ARM CHAIR. DATE 1675.
With Bevelled Panels.
OAK ARM CHAIR. DATE 1777.
With initials A.S. C.B.
The Chair-back and its Development.—Another point in connection with the ordered progress of the chair-maker is the gradual development of the back of the chair. At first it was straight upright, and no attempt was made to impart an angle to rest the back of the sitter. Types such as the arm-chair with square panel (p. [191]) and the upright settle with the five panels illustrated on p. [201] indicate this feature of discomfort. The next stage is a slight inclination in the back, still possessing a flat panel. This angle, while not conforming to modern notions of ease, was an attempt to offer greater comfort than before. This style, in a hundred forms, with the minimum of inclination in the back, continued for a very considerable period. It is found in the nearly straight-backed chairs of Derbyshire and Yorkshire origin, with the turned stretchers, and it actually in later days became almost upright in the series of chairs following the later Stuart types with cane back and cane seat, noticeable for their tall narrow backs with a resemblance to the prie-dieu chair of continental usage.
The settle illustrated is a plainer variety of the settle made for use by fashionable folk with delicately panelled back. Very often, in cottage furniture, chests and other pieces are broken up to make into smaller furniture or to be incorporated into furniture of a later design. Often it is found that the underframing of an old gate table made in the seventeenth or eighteenth century is from an earlier chest. In the present instance it will be seen that the back panels of the settle have been made from an older chest, which bears the inscribed initials, still visible, "I.E." In date this settle is about 1675, and is contemporary with the square-backed chair illustrated on the same page. Here the panel in back projects, that is, it is slightly bevelled forward. The bevelling of the panel is always a sign that a chair is later in date than the year 1670.
Illustrated on the same page is a remarkable chair having the initials "A.S.C.B." and the date 1777 carved on it. It is a striking instance of the adherence to old time-honoured form by the local cabinet-maker, with touches that, even although the date were not present, would tell their own story. This dull wood proclaims a message in accents no less sure than the sturdy yeoman's to Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and as a chair in date anno Domini 1777 may afford to "smile at the claims of long descent" of more pretentious and fashionable furniture. It is like a rich vein of dialect running in some old country song ripe with phrase of Saxon days. It seems incredible that this survival of early-Jacobean days should have been put together by a village craftsman true to convention and exact in seat and arms and stretcher. But it was not done unthinkingly. Here is a chair, astounding to note, made when Sheraton was creating his new styles to supplant Chippendale, and when Hepplewhite stood between the two masters as a via media. And the back of this village chair has two distinct features translated from Hepplewhite's school—the wheatear crest and the panel with its broken corner!