Philip Clissett, Chairmaker
  • Home
  • Biography
    • Philip's life story
    • Photographs
  • Family history
  • Chairs
    • Spindleback chairs
    • Ladderback chairs
    • Special chairs
    • Relatives' chairs
    • Chairmaking
    • Chairmakers
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • T&C etc
    • Copyright
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy

An interesting West Midlands armchair

19/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture

This chair is NOT by Philip Clissett, but I have a few reasons for discussing it here.

Firstly, it’s an armchair version of one of the chairs featured in the painting by Edward Thompson Davis that I discussed in a previous post. It’s likely to have been a common style of chair in the Worcestershire area in the mid-19th century. It was purchased by me from a private seller in Brierley Hill in the West Midlands.

Secondly, there’s a clear link to Clissett’s famous ladderback chair in that this chair has a similar taper and ball arm support (see below). Bill Cotton’s The English Regional Chair contains no clear examples of this particular pattern of support other than Clissett’s chair. A couple of Lincolnshire examples come close (NE196-197), but they lack the ball turning (well, half-ball, in reality). On Clissett’s chair, the underarm support looks at one with the overall Arts and Crafts look of the chair, and might be attributed to the influence of James MacLaren who commissioned the first of these, and made some design input. But the existence of a similar support on a this rather different West Midlands chair proves that it was in use as a local motif long before MacLaren arrived on the scene – there are other chairs that support this point, and I’ll post on them before long.

Thirdly, it’s an example of the sort of local chair that Philip Clissett must have been aware of, and that his own work must have stood alongside.

A more detailed description of this chair would not be amiss. It’s made entirely in ash and, unusually for a West Midlands chair, is pegged only at the rear of the top slat. There are the usual signs that it was made in cleft green wood, so that it would have been held together entirely by the shrinkage of the mortices around the tenons. That this has failed in the case of one of the arm supports is evidence by a large, old, iron nail having been driven into the edge of one of the through tenons.

The chair is quite heavily constructed with legs of about 1½ inches in diameter, tapering to 1¼ inches at the top. Aside from the tapered arm support, the stand out features are the sinuous arms – they are really beautifully shaped (see below). There are vestiges of green paint in places – I haven’t got a clue whether that is original.

Overall height is about 40 inches, about 5 inches shorter than Clissett’s tall chairs. Seat height is 15 inches, about 2 inches lower than Clissett’s adult chairs – low chairs like this seem quite common. But it’s quite a wide chair – the seat measures 21⅜ inches at the front. With the sinuous arms, it will accommodate a substantial person.

There’s a lot of wear to this chair. The top left finial is part worn away. The arm ends are well worn, particularly to the right where much is missing. The lower front rung is well worn, a good indicator of age. But the best indicator of substantial use is the amount of wear to the inside of the arm supports which has completely removed the ring turning at the bottom.

No indication of maker, I'm afraid, which is a pity but pretty standard for chairs from this area.



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Terry Rowell

    Copyright

    This blog is copyright, and the intellectual property of its author.
    Protected by Copyscape Duplicate Content Detection Tool
    © T.A. Rowell 2020

    Archives

    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    March 2019
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All
    Arnold Dunbar Smith
    Arts & Crafts Movement
    Art Workers Guild
    Barnard's Inn
    Barry Parker
    Bedford Lemere & Co
    Bending Timber
    Cecil Brewer
    Chairmaking
    Chairs
    Charles Rennie Mackintosh
    Clarice Cliff
    Collections
    Ernest Gimson
    Exhibition
    Garden City
    George Frampton
    Hereford
    High Chairs
    James Maclaren
    Joseph Holland Tringham
    Ladderback
    Letchworth
    Longdon
    Museums
    National Portrait Gallery
    Newport
    Painting
    Raymond Unwin
    Samuel Clissett
    Spindleback
    Stool
    Tools
    William Cole
    William Morris
    Wilson Bidwell
    Workshop

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.