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Lot Essay
The production of Windsor chairs in the West Country was often undertaken by coopers and other woodworkers who were skilled in the use of the draw-knife, and they shaped the back spindles with this tool, rather than turning them on the lathe, which was the method used elsewhere in England. This resulted in clearly hand shaped back spindles. Chairs of this style, and other related Windsors from the West Country, sometimes also have shaped and bent supports joining the outer spindles to the arms, and also as bent front under-arm supports. The top or 'comb' rail has West Country features too, in having axe shaped ends which are thinned to the rear, unlike those from other regions which tend to be of the same thickness as the rail.
The legs, which are also hand shaped, are not connected by cross rails; this is a feature common to Windsors from the Celtic regions of Britain. Large imposing Windsor armchairs of this type have other features associated with chairs made in the West Country; these include the use of particular woods which are common in Windsors from this region including ash in the legs and back structure and sycamore in the seat. Windsors from this area were typically painted with blue/green paint and black paint; from the mid-19th century onwards, varnish was often applied over this paint.
Although clearly having these features of West Country Windsors, it is also the case that chairs of precisely this and other West Country designs have been located in South Yorkshire over many years; it seems probable that they were made there too, perhaps following the movement of miners from Cornwall or Devon to work in the Yorkshire mines.
A closely similar example is included in the furniture collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Virginia, inventory number 1959.155, and is also illustrated in Nancy Goyne Evans, American Windsor Chairs, 1996, p.47, as part of her seminal analysis of the origins of Windsor chair design in America and which she dates to circa 1730-1750. That particular example, however, has its curved ash back and under-arm supports missing.
A very similar example is also illustrated in Dr. B. Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge, 1990, page 273, fig.SW33 and page 365, plate 34.
Dr. B. Cotton May 2002
The legs, which are also hand shaped, are not connected by cross rails; this is a feature common to Windsors from the Celtic regions of Britain. Large imposing Windsor armchairs of this type have other features associated with chairs made in the West Country; these include the use of particular woods which are common in Windsors from this region including ash in the legs and back structure and sycamore in the seat. Windsors from this area were typically painted with blue/green paint and black paint; from the mid-19th century onwards, varnish was often applied over this paint.
Although clearly having these features of West Country Windsors, it is also the case that chairs of precisely this and other West Country designs have been located in South Yorkshire over many years; it seems probable that they were made there too, perhaps following the movement of miners from Cornwall or Devon to work in the Yorkshire mines.
A closely similar example is included in the furniture collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Virginia, inventory number 1959.155, and is also illustrated in Nancy Goyne Evans, American Windsor Chairs, 1996, p.47, as part of her seminal analysis of the origins of Windsor chair design in America and which she dates to circa 1730-1750. That particular example, however, has its curved ash back and under-arm supports missing.
A very similar example is also illustrated in Dr. B. Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge, 1990, page 273, fig.SW33 and page 365, plate 34.
Dr. B. Cotton May 2002