CHAIRS
The old-fashioned idea that a collector must arrange his treasures
grouped in one spot no longer obtains. I recall asking one who had
returned from a visit to a very interesting house if the host and
hostess were collectors of antiques, curios, or rare _objets d’art_.
“Oh, no,” was the reply, “I don’t think so. They showed me many
beautiful things, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a
collection.” Later I learned that this home contained one of the most
notable collections of early furniture in America! All these pieces, of
course, had been considered as articles entering into the adornment of
this home and not merely as objects gathered clutter-wise into the
semblance of an old curiosity shop. Even our museums are now often
exhibiting their furniture collections arranged in such a manner as to
carry out a complete idea of the original intention of the various
pieces, displaying them in reconstructed rooms or in the counterpart of
a portion of a room.
Probably no piece of furniture holds greater interest for the
specialized or even the general collector than the chair. Its ancestry
is venerable, but its remote antiquity need not be dwelt upon at length
here. It is true that in a magnificent Louis Quatorze drawing-room,
perfectly appointed and historically correct, the introduction of a
cottage chair of the Windsor type would be as displeasing an anachronism
as putting a wild thrush to neighbor with all the parrots of an avairy.
On the other hand, the drawing-room of the average typical home in good
taste the world over might contain a Chippendale chair, a Carolean
settee, a Sheraton card-table, a Louis XIII stool, and an Italian
Renaissance table, and yet be agreeably pleasing and pleasantly inviting
if skill, good taste, and common sense had entered into the character of
arrangements.
The collector who wishes to devote some attention to old furniture would
do well to begin with old chairs. All the old chairs (the good ones and
the fine ones) have not been “collected up” in the sense that they are
permanently retired from business. When once they get into the museums,
of course, they stay there, but even museums are not omnivorous. The
acquiring of supremely rare or unique objects is by no means the only
pleasure to be derived from collecting. In fact, it is one of its least
thrilling forms, being measured more by dollars and cents and the
commerce of things than it is by the mere joy of acquisition.
Some one has estimated that every collection which does not go into a
museum changes hands every twenty years on an average. It is a fact that
collecting in America to-day is infinitely more easy of accomplishment
than it was a century ago. In New York, for instance, the auction sales
of a single recent season presented to the collector more opportunities
than could have come his way in six seasons years ago. It is a mistake
to suppose that all good “chances” have passed; they are, as a matter of
fact, just about beginning in America. We are told that collectors have
ransacked farmhouses and old houses in the East for interesting pieces
of antique furniture. That is true, but the process means only a change
of location and not an elimination of possibilities.
The collector of old chairs can easily become familiar with the various
forms of peculiarities of design which mark the different styles and
periods, as may be seen by even a passing glance at the accompanying
illustrations. Indeed, the ear-marks that distinguish certain pieces of
furniture of the historic periods and distinct styles from others are,
happily, so numerous that the art of identification becomes
comparatively an easy one. Beginners will, to be sure, often come across
modern reproductions of genuine old chairs. Not all of these--in fact,
comparatively few of them--were made with intent to defraud.
Occasionally some unscrupulous or ignorant person will offer a modern
piece as genuine, but your true collector need hardly be deceived,
except in rare instances, by attempted impositions. The form of the
master furniture designers of yesterday has never been surpassed. There
is nothing in modern design more beautiful or so beautiful as many of
the old chairs of Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite, and likewise
of the early English and the French periods. Realizing this, the
furniture-makers of to-day at home and abroad have sought to reproduce
the best of these antique pieces for the service and the benefit of the
modern home-maker, obviously as undisguised reproductions.
The collector who studies old chairs will glean many a helpful hint from
these modern reproductions. The fine ones faithfully carried out are
really worth collecting in themselves, as accessory to a collection of
other pieces which the collector has been fortunate in obtaining in the
originals. If you
[Illustration: Chippendale Mahogany Arm-Chair 1760-1780]
[Illustration: Shield-Back Hepplewhite Arm-Chair]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Louis XIV Arm-Chair]
[Illustration: Louis XV Arm-Chair]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Brooklyn Museum of Art_
Three Rare Williamite Glasses. Two English Glass Rummers Engraved with
Nelson Subjects, and a smaller Jacobite Arms Rummer. Centre Tumbler
Commemorates Coronation of George IV of England. Two 18th Century
Tumblers]
chance to come across an old chair fine in the lines of its design, do
not give it up as hopeless should you notice that it is disfigured with
paint, dowdy, broken-down upholstery, and the like. A good restorer of
old furniture will be able to work wonders with a piece of the sort. I
remember discovering an old chair so hidden under the disguise of paint,
putty, and car-plush as to have discouraged any but a discriminating
enthusiasm. When this chair was turned over to a restorer he delivered
it from its bondage of humiliation and it came forth an excellent and
treasured genuine example of the finest Hepplewhite style. The
“stuffing” had completely hidden a splendid ostrich-plume back.
To collect anything sensibly requires an interest in the available data
concerning it. One might as well collect buttons manufactured in 1920 as
to pay no attention to the study of things gathered together in
pleasurable pursuit. So, too, it is with chairs. A chair-collector looks
beyond the mere utilitarian fact that each chair can be sat upon with
comfort, or can’t be.
First of all he must acquaint himself with the various periods: Italian
Renaissance, French Renaissance, Flemish, Spanish, Elizabethan,
Carolean, and Jacobean (Tudor to Stuart), William and Mary, Queen Anne,
the Early Georgian, the French periods of the Henris, the Louis, the
Empire, the styles of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, and
the early American forms.
The collector will find many excellent works in English by eminent
authorities on furniture, all of which devote proper space to the
subject of the chairs of the particular period of which they are
treating. There the chair enthusiast will learn that walnut came to be
widely used in English chairs after 1650; that Hepplewhite suggested
haircloth for chair coverings; that the Carolean crown is a
distinguishing feature of the Restoration period; that Queen Anne chairs
are marked by simplicity, their beauty depending mainly on their fine
lines, graceful curves, delicate veneering, and restraint where inlay is
used; that mahogany came into use between 1720 and 1725, and not into
general use before 1730; that Chippendale’s best pieces were made
between 1730 and 1760; that in all _real_ Chippendale ball-and-claw
terminations the claw is carved to suggest vividly a gripping strength,
and not as merely resting passively on the ball as in the imitations and
in nearly all modern reproductions. These are but a few of the many
interesting facts every old-furniture collector should know, points that
enable one to collect chairs intelligently and with joy in the pursuit
of a delectable hobby that is also a very practical one.