Easy-chairs formed a part of the bedroom furniture inventoried during the eighteenth century, and they were made in various styles, with Dutch, Chippendale, and Hepplewhite legs. Hepplewhite gives a design in 1787 for what he calls “an easy-chair,” and also a “saddle-check chair,” while upon the same page, with intentional suggestion, is a design for a “gouty-stool.”
Illus. 157.—Dutch Roundabout
Chair, 1740.
Illustration [158] shows an easy-chair with the Dutch bandy leg and foot, owned by the writer. Such chairs were inventoried very high, from one pound to ten, and when one considers the amount of material required to stuff and cover the chair, the reason for the high valuation is understood. In the days when the fireplace gave what heat there was in the room, these great chairs must have been most comfortable, with the high back and sides to keep out draughts.
An easy-chair with claw-and-ball feet is shown in Illustration [159]. It is owned by Francis H. Bigelow, Esq., of Cambridge. A beautiful easy-chair with carved cabriole legs, owned by Harry Harkness Flagler, Esq., is shown in Illustration [248].
We now come to the most important period in the consideration of chairs,—the last half of the eighteenth century. During this period many books of designs were published, which probably came to this country within a year or two of their publication, and which afforded American cabinet-makers an opportunity for copying the best English examples.
Chippendale’s designs were published in 1753, Hepplewhite’s in 1789, Sheraton’s in 1791. Besides these three chief chair-makers, there were Ince and Mayhew, 1765; Robert Manwaring, 1765; R. and J. Adam, 1773; and others of less note.
