Here is another typically West Midlands chair. Along with the chair described in my last post, it is of a type seen in Edward Thompson Davis’s mid-19th century painting For What We Are About To Receive, featured in Bill Cotton’s book The English Regional Chair.

This “short-arm” style of chair has been extensively explored in a article by John Boram. With close links to French chairs, this type is found in several English regional styles, including Macclesfield, Sussex and Worcestershire. Indeed, Cotton illustrated a Worcestershire example, by Kerry of Evesham, and suggested it could be the inspiration for the design of the Clissett-MacLaren ladderback, something which is now very much in doubt. In his article, John Boram shows a spindleback example that he attributes to Philip Clissett, though the chair is not stamped “PC” and there are a number of elements that suggest to me that it is not by Clissett. What is clear from John’s article is that this short-arm style can be confidently linked to Worcestershire, and that the appearance of one of these in Davis’s painting does support the idea that they were, for a time, typical of the region.

Our chair is a nice example in cherrywood, and of very light construction, as these typically are. It is pegged at the usual places for a West Midlands chair. In addition, there are a number of pegs at the ends of the stretchers – these may be later additions attempting to stabilise loose joints. The seat is large and low, about 15 inches in height. Maximum height of the chair is about 40 inches. The seat edge protectors may not be original. The arms have a unusual dipped form. Aside from these features, there are a few other points of particular interest.

The arm supports, which pierce the side seat rails, are morticed into the otherwise unmodified upper side stretchers, and held in place with pegs. Often, on this type of chair, the stretcher is enlarged at the point where the arm support enters but, in this case, the stretcher is plain. This does make a link with John Boram’s attributed Clissett short-arm chair, which is built in the same way.

The arm supports are of interest because, like the other West Midlands chair recently discussed, they feature the taper and ball (half-ball) style that is an important aspect of the famous Clissett ladderback. Taken with other evidence, we are beginning to see that this was a feature that Clissett would have at least been aware of, and may well have used long before James MacLaren came along to influence the form of the ladderback.

The slats of the ladder back are very reminiscent of the Clissett ladderback, and similar to those seen on the Kerry chair referred to above. In fact, I’ve seen quite a few West Midlands short-arm chairs with this type of ladder back. Again, they show similarities to French chairs. What particularly interests me are the differences between these chairs and Clissett’s. Clissett’s chairs in the well-known Maclaren or Art Workers Guild style always have the slats shaped from the front, so that you can usually see the curved face running off to the top of each slat. The back of each slat is entirely flat. In contrast, in the chair we are discussing here, the shaping is at the front for the centre part of the slat, and at the back for the side parts.

This shaping at the back of the slat, rather than the front, seems to be common to all the West Midlands short-arm chairs I’ve seen with this style of ladder back. It is also the case in the only two full-arm chairs I know of with this type of ladder back, one of which is uncannily similar to a Clissett ladderback (but clearly isn’t one of his).

But what is really interesting (to me, at least), is that I know of two chairs made by Clissett where the slats are shaped from the back rather than the front. Both are atypical in other ways…

The first is stamped with Clissett’s initials, and is the only known ladderback with a timber seat. It is identical to Clissett’s stamped spindleback chairs in all respects aside from the back.

The second chair looks, at first sight, like a standard Clissett ladderback. but is slightly smaller (see below). We know it’s made by Clissett because it’s a handed-down family piece – and it has the usual workshop scribe marks. But the slats are quite different to the standard ladderback – the centre part is much wider than usual, and the sides are shaped from behind.

My feeling is that these two Clissett-made chairs both pre-date James MacLaren’s visit to Philip’s workshop. The way the slats are made reflects the general way slats were finished in Worcestershire (remember, Clissett was born, and learned his trade, in Worcestershire). So MacLaren’s principal contribution may well have been to influence the way the slats were shaped, resulting in a more elegant back to the chair. All the other elements of this iconic chair seem to have been in place already.

In previous posts, and in the chapter on Clissett and the Arts and Crafts Movement, I’ve identified several paintings that include Clissett ladderback chairs as an important part of the composition. Here we have another, this time by William Ratcliffe (1870-1955). It’s up for auction next month (October 2020) at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh, and much of what follows comes from their description of the painting.

Ratcliffe studied wallpaper design in Manchester under Walter Crane. The family moved house, in 1906, from Manchester to Letchworth, the new Garden City with many Arts & Crafts influences, and where we know that many houses were furnished with Clissett’s chairs. A couple of years later, the artist Harold Gilman also moved to Letchworth and became a neighbour of the Ratcliffe family. Under Gilman’s influence, Ratcliffe gave up wallpaper design and took up painting. He was introduced to the Campden Town Group by Gilman, and showed paintings in all three of the group’s exhibitions.

This particular painting is thought to depict the home of Stanley and Signe Parker at 102 Wilbury Road, Letchworth. Several photographs of the interior of this house exist, and they show several Clissett ladderbacks. It certainly seems likely that this is the suggested location, especially as Ratcliffe knew the Parkers, and is known to have visited them.

It’s worth noting that Gilman also painted a room containing a Clissett ladderback. In that instance, the chair almost certainly belonged to Gilman himself.

Harold Gilman (1876-1919) was an important member of the Camden Group, a group of artists that included Walter Sickert and Augustus John. This picture, painted in 1916, includes a clear and prominent Clissett chair. The image is known to be of Gilman's own rooms in Maple Street, off Tottenham Court Road. He had previously lived in Letchworth where he may well have come across Clissett's chairs, which we know to have been in a number of houses.

We can only assume that this chair belonged to Gilman himself. Whatever the case, Gilman can be added to the lengthening list of artists and architects who lived with Clissett's chairs.

This painting is in the Kirklees Collection of the Huddersfield Art Gallery. Gilman was the subject of a major exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in 2019.

I've just received this wonderful catalogue for an exhibition currently being held at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid; titled (in English) William Morris and company: the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain. A Philip Clissett ladderback chair is item number 219 in the exhibition, and features in two further photographs in the catalogue, a shot of the meeting hall at the Art Workers Guild, and a fabulous, full-page c1903 image of Emery Walker's house in Hammersmith Terrace, London. This exhibition comes hot on the heels of the 2014-15 National Portrait Gallery exhibition Anarchy and Beauty. William Morris and his Legacy 1860-1960, which also featured Clissett's chair several times in its catalogue, as well as on display.

The catalogue for the Madrid exhibition is an extremely well illustrated overview of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and runs to nearly 500 pages. Judging by the website, the exhibition would be well worth a visit if you're in Madrid any time up to 21 January 2018. After that, it will be in Barcelona at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya from 22 February to 21 May 2018.

This photograph was given to me ages ago by Bill Cotton, to whom I'm eternally grateful for this record of the only known stool by this chairmaker. Yet another example of the country craftsman's willingness to produce whatever his customer's wanted.

It's possible that Clissett made many of these, but this is the only one that's turned up so far. How do we know it's by Clissett? Well, I have Bill's word for it, and the style is exactly right. The turnings on the top and feet of the legs are exactly those used by Clissett on his ladderback side chairs. I'd still like to handle the stool myself though, and I'm sure that there would be other clues not visible in the photograph. Unfortunately, we have no idea of the stool's whereabouts. If you know, or think you have a stool made by Clissett, then please contact us.

I've included the stool on the Special Chairs page of the website.

Here is a list of Clissett's chairs in public and private collections. In most cases, these are not on public display, though I have noted when they are. But, to counter that, they are generally shown on the organisation's website. If you want to see chairs that are not on public display, then this is usually possible if you make arrangements ahead of a visit. In some cases, there is an entrance fee – this will be obvious from the organisation's website.

Where possible, I've given a link to the organisation's website, followed by link(s) to any online information about the chair(s) they hold. In some cases, there is no online information, or only some of the chairs they hold have online details (e.g. the Geffrye Museum).

Not all of the information given on these websites is accurate, and it is always best to use this Philip Clissett website to make any statement about him or his work.

If you know of any other museums or collections holding examples of Clissett's work, please contact us.

Victoria & Albert Museum
Has a ladderback armchair and a very unusual ladderback child's high chair.

Art Workers Guild
The Meeting Hall contains by far the largest collection of Philip Clissett chairs in the world, all ladderback armchairs. That these are by Clissett is well known, so it is odd that the AWG's website now (at the time of writing) claims them to be by Ernest Gimson and his apprentices!

No. 7 Hammersmith Terrace (Emery Walker's House)
Has a single ladderback armchair on display in the dining room (see photo on linked web page).

Geffrye Museum
Has a ladderback chair and two PC-stamped spindleback armchairs.

William Morris Gallery
Has a ladderback armchair.

 Worcestershire County Museum, Hartlebury
Has a ladderback armchair and a number of PC-stamped spindleback chairs.

The Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham
Has a ladderback armchair (usually on display as part of the permanent Arts & Crafts exhibition), and a PC-stamped spindleback chair. The ladderback originally belonged to the Arts & Crafts designer Ernest Barnsley.

Herefordshire Museums (Museum Resource and Learning Centre, Hereford)
Has a ladderback armchair and several interesting PC-stamped spindleback and other chairs including two flap-seated prayer chairs.

Butcher Row House Museum, Ledbury
Has a ladderback armchair and a ladderback side chair on permanent display.

New Walk Museum, Leicester
Has a good collection of ladderback armchairs and a side chair (scroll down the linked web page to see several Clissett-made chairs).

Rodmarton Manor, Gloucestershire
Has two ladderback armchairs on display.

Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, Glasgow
Has a single ladderback side chair that's now properly attributed to Clissett/MacLaren, though it's still misattributed to Charles Rennie Mackintosh on the Hunterian web catalogue.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Has a single ladderback side chair. The online record for this chair used to have a photograph of the chair, but this had been removed at the time of writing. It can, however, be seen on Flickr. Note that some of the information about Clissett is incorrect, as is the species of timber the chair is made from.

Crab Tree Farm, Illinois
Has a ladderback armchair originally misattributed to Ernest Gimson but now properly attributed to Clissett and MacLaren (parts of the original misattribution are still showing on the website at the time of writing).

You might look at this elegant five-rung side chair, and declare that you'd seen it before on this website. At first sight, it seems identical to the side chair (No 4a) illustrated on the Ladderbacks page that is, essentially, a full-size armchair without the arms. But this chair is different. The dimensions of its seat is about 90% of the size of the seat on the armchair. This makes the back narrower, so the rungs of the back are scaled down accordingly and, because the overall height is the same, this chair appears taller and, arguably, even more graceful.

One of the two bills of sale that have survived from Clissett's workshop details two types of armchair. The "Ordinary size, Low back, Rush-seat Chairs, without Arms" is almost certainly the small three-rung side chair, No 6 on the Ladderbacks page. The others are "High back, Ash Rush-seat Chairs without Arms, second size". Until now, I had no idea what was meant by "second size". Now, it seems entirely possible that this new chair is the second size, while the full size side chair is likely to be the first size.

Another little mystery potentially solved.

I've long puzzled over how Philip Clissett bent the curved parts of his chairs. Modern woodworkers would tell me that he must have steamed or boiled the parts before bending them in some sort of jig (you can watch Mike Abbott do this in a Youtube video) . They would then have been retained in a similar jig while they dried out.

We have two quite detailed accounts of how Clissett made his chairs. Both are incomplete, and only one comes from a known source – an interview with Clissett's grandson, Will, who made chairs alongside his grandfather for nearly twenty years. Neither account mentions steaming or boiling. Chair legs were simply bent, apparently cold, in a jig.

It was green woodworking guru Mike Abbott who gave me a clue to what might have been going on. He asked me why there was such a difference between the back legs of Clissett's chairs and those produced by Edward Gardiner and his followers, Neville and Lawrence Neal – who make copies of Clissett's chairs. In contrast to the curve of Clissett's, the legs on the other chairs have a distinct kink. You can watch Lawrence bending chair legs in a short video of him at work. This is instructive, because the jig that Lawrence uses is more or less identical to Clissett's, and should produce the same results – but doesn't.

You will see that Lawrence boils the legs, then bends them over a fulcrum in the jig. My thought was that the hot, relatively soft wood bends at the fulcrum resulting in this kink with quite straight timber above and below. On the other hand, if Clissett bent chair legs cold, then I could imagine the stiffer timber resulting in a relatively smooth curve over the fulcrum. In one of the accounts of his methods, there is a graphic description of how the jig containing eight bent legs was placed in a cooling bread oven for twenty to thirty minutes, then left in a warm place to dry out. I believe the high temperature in the oven would result in the same softening of the timber that is caused by steaming or boiling.

There is no question that the oven trick will set bent green wood. You can try it with small stuff cut from the hedgerow, and it works convincingly. The big question is, can you bend a chair leg (1¼ inches thick) without heating it first?

Mike Abbott was doubtful. But he kindly, and very open-mindedly, gave me a chance to find out. He made a leg slightly thinner than he normally does, adding 10% to the usual diameter of a Clissett – then gave it to me to try to bend. To his surprise, and mine, it went very easily. He then tried it with one of his slightly thicker pieces – again, no problem.

There are several books out there that deal with bending wood, and some of them refer to cold bending. All seem to consider it of limited use, mainly because of the tendency for the wood to regain its original shape soon after release from pressure. But none seem to consider the use of heat after bending. So maybe Clissett was using a method that has since been lost.

Cold bending would be of no use for the dramatic curves of Windsor chairs but, for gentler bends there is clearly some potential – if a woodworker has access to a suitable source of dry heat. Clissett was, of course, using heat that would otherwise have gone to waste, so keeping his costs to a minimum. We still can't be certain that Clissett didn't steam or boil chair parts before bending, but we now know that he could have done it without – and if he didn't need to steam or boil, why would he have done so?

You can read Mike Abbott's account of this experiment, with photographs, on his blog.

Although Philip Clissett made spindleback chairs with wooden seats, the only ladderback chairs known to be made by him are rush-seated. Thanks to the sharp eye of Paul Shutler, we now know of the existence of at least one ladderback with a wooden seat.

This chair is extraordinary in more ways than one. It's built on Clissett's spindleback frame which differs from the usual ladderback in having no finials, vase-shaped front feet, and entirely different arms and under-arm turnings. In addition, it's stamped "PC" on the top of the front legs - the normal ladderbacks are are almost never stamped, and can't be stamped in this position because of their finials.

Furthermore, the slats on this ladderback are very different. Although graduated in terms of both height and width of the central part, this graduation is nowhere near as marked as normal, and the upper slats have less height than usual. And, whereas each slat would normally be shaped towards the top to create a blade-like edge, these are entirely unworked leaving a square edge along their entire length.

It's tempting to speculate that this chair is the forerunner of the famous ladderback, tweaked by James MacLaren, bought by many Arts & Crafts practitioners and followers, and still gracing the Meeting Hall of the Art Workers' Guild. There are similarities to a chair made by Philip's uncle which adds some credence to the speculation. But there is also some evidence that Philip made chairs that mix the styles seen in his spindlebacks and ladderbacks. So we're left, yet again, uncertain of exactly what we're looking at!

Many thanks to Paul for letting me know about this chair, and giving me an opportunity to have a good look at it (and for letting me use the photographs).