Chair Country Chippendale style.
The right-hand chair parts with the underframing below the seat, which gives a touch of lightness to the construction. The turned legs and uprights have departed from the coarse early-Jacobean style and perceptibly depend on walnut prototypes for their character. The back shows the transition from the lath back (such as in the chairs simulating the cane-work) to the splat back. It is an interesting and rare example, marking the slow assimilation of new forms by isolated makers. This specimen came from Ireland and evidently possesses native touches of originality which defy the connoisseur to determine its exact date.
The Queen Anne Splat.—The fiddle-shaped splat of 1710 marks a turning-point in the construction of the chair.
The walnut chairs with caned backs of the time of James II. and the early days of William III. were carved richly, and sometimes there was a splat dividing the caning at the back, which later, also in caned-back examples, is curved and plain. The general tendency in the reigns of William and Mary, especially towards the close of the period, was one of economy, and elaborate carving began to disappear.
The Queen Anne smooth splat of fiddle form rapidly became popular. This Anglo-Dutch style became acclimatised here, and is characteristic of the homely examples of the Queen Anne period. In walnut it was comparatively easy to carry out carving. In oak such elaboration was well-nigh impossible. It was therefore natural that in the farmhouse examples the plain Dutch splat would readily find favour as more easily executed. By the time that the fiddle splat had become popular the stretcher joining the cabriole legs commenced to disappear.
The splat plays an important part as indicating sharp variations in design—walnut with open carving, intricate and floriated; walnut with the plain fiddle splat, with its corresponding minor form in oak; mahogany, with the advent of Chippendale, with the splat again open, carved with graceful ribbon-work.
The arm-chair illustrated p. [213] is a remarkable instance of intermingling of styles. The front legs are in Jacobean style, and are continued in the same manner as the usual type of oak chair as supports for the arms, but an original touch and naïve departure is in the curve given to this upright from the seat upwards. The seat is shaped like that of the Windsor chair. The arms are somewhat stiff for the back with its Cupid's-bow design, which has a sprightliness and grace making it a thing apart. The whole is not unpleasing. It is a remarkable instance of the attempted assimilation of several diverse styles by an undeveloped cabinet-maker with strong ideas of his own. The oak form is rigidly retained in all except the back and splat of Queen Anne days.
COUNTRY-MADE OAK SETTEE WITH DOUBLE BACK IN CHIPPENDALE STYLE.