Description
A good pair of English late-17th century walnut chairs. Charles II period, circa 1680.
Lovely waxed patinated surfaces and colour.
The upright, caned high backs well carved. The pierced foliate and scroll crestings vigorously carved in the typical late-17th century manner.
Raised on well-carved legs with serpentine seat rails, united by sophisticated shaped stretchers centred with an elegant finial.
Very finely-caned seats in superb condition. Tight frames and – crucially – no breaks. Minor historic restoration entirely commensurate with their age – some 300 years plus.
Nb. The frames are exuberantly carved in the Charles II Restoration-period manner, moving away from the austerity of the preceding Commonwealth era.
Literature:
Herbert Cescinsky, English Furniture Of The Eighteenth Century, George Routledge & Sons (1911) vol. I, p. 16, fig. 11. A chair illustrated and dated 1689-1692.
Ralph Edwards CBE FSA illustrates a similar chair in his Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, Hamlyn (Fourth Impression 1972) p. 131, ill. 59. He dates this chair to 1700. See also p. 126, ills. 40 & 42 [sic] showing a finial centred in the stretchers.
Vis. Percy Macquoid, A History of English Furniture, vol. 1, The Age of Oak and The Age of Walnut, Antique Collectors’ Club Ltd (1904-5), p. 109, fig. 101.
