It would be difficult to make a case for the English 18th century chair as any singular paradigm for the development of style, but that it was continually reflective of contemporary taste there is no question.

With England’s wresting of exclusive trade with the Far East from the Dutch, significantly more, and significantly cheaper, export type items made their way into the English market. The increased prevalence of Chinese screens, bits of small furniture, and lacquer ware made orientalia an affordable vogue by the middle of the 18th century. This mid-18th century mahogany lattice back chair, though of a vaguely oriental appearance, is thoroughly in the mainstream of English fashion, derived from a published design of Thomas Chippendale.   Parenthetically, I have to admit to my gentle readers that, when we acquired this chair a number of years ago, it was with particular excitement. It is with the passing of time and our experience in the business that we have seen enough examples of these chairs, including innumerable late 19th century Chippendale revival pieces, to know that this is and was an extremely popular model. At the time, the chair made such an impression on us that we reproduced the Chippendale design in our trade card, a design we maintain to this day.

If we can frame stylistic trends in terms of a dialectic, as the reaction from the rococo begat the neo-classical, so the reaction from far eastern exoticism begat Gothicism. Simplistic, but not entirely inaccurate, n’est-ce pas? So in the very teeth of exoticism, chairs began to reflect a truly endemic national style.   It’s interesting to consider that the high style Gothic tracery of the back splat and the linen-fold carving to the legs are all rendered upon exotic mahogany timber. How, I wonder, would Horace Walpole and his Committee of Taste rationalize this? That said, it is pretty generally accepted that that efflorescence of Georgian Gothicism, Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, is very much more a confection than it is any focused attempt at recapturing England’s medieval past.

Given Walpole’s extradinary breadth of both wealth, intellect and personal experience, it is unreasonable to assume all these wouldn’t significantly inform his aesthetic. And, of course, that England was paramount in its worldwide political, economic, and military hegemony, it is not then surprising to find pervasive internationalism in high style, certainly amongst that which found particuar appeal for the quality. One reads occasionally of manifestations of le gôut anglaise in Paris, but no one can possibly maintain that Paris was not the preeminent centre of fashion, with London a nearly slavish mimic. Though constructed with the utmost skill by John Linnell, it would be futile to claim that this pair of George III giltwood armchairs were anything other than French inspired.

The trade in English antiques has been replete with palaver about the London season, with a number of my colleagues contributing to the general anxiety with printed debates about the failings of fair promoters, other dealers, and the buying public generally. Although personally no stranger to controversy, there is the old expression about discretion being the better part of valour. Or, as my mother would have it, if you can’t say anything good about someone, say nothing at all.

Shall we fill in the time with a lively discussion about something we all use but seldom consider? The chair, essential to any posterior, and available in countless incarnations, would seem a natural adjunct to any domestic interior. Surprising then to consider that the chair came into fairly common use only in the 18th century. The use of the term ‘backstool’ to describe the earliest chair designs provides an obvious indication of from whence the chair descended.  With vertical backs formed from stiles that ran directly from the ground to the top rail, the backstool was arguably built more for the display of its upholstery than for the comfort of the sitter.

That a chair might fit some approximation of the seated human form is a gradual innovation, perhaps due to greater market demand the result of the general prosperity in the Georgian England of the early 18th century. With all that, it shouldn’t be assumed that innovation in chair design is easily wrought. The chair pictured looks simple enough with its unadorned, vase-shaped splat, until one realizes the splat is bowed outward to conform to the convexity of the sitter’s back.  And the concavity of the splat is achieved with a rectangular plank that must be vertical at the top with two tenons to fit into corresponding mortises in the top rail, carefully hand shaped in the center to a concave form, and returned to vertical at its base with a tenon to fit into the ‘shoe’ above the rear seat rail.

By the second decade of the 18th century, the expert joinery associated with chair making is probably on a par with the joiner’s essential facility with geometry, to accomplish the basic components of a comfortable chair. Despite the invariable inclusion of chair designs in virtually all furniture design compendia, chair making was often its own specialty. Robert Manwaring was pleased to advertise his own artful facility with the publication in 1765 of his, he said ‘original and not piratical’ designs in The Cabinet and Chair-Maker’s Real Friend and Companion.

What can one say? With the demise of Grosvenor House last year and its remaking as Masterpiece London, I must say, times being the way they are, the organizers are nothing if not gutsy.

Masterpiece London begins June 24 and runs through June 29 at the former Chelsea Barracks. The nearest tube station is Sloane Square.

In keeping current with all things social (media, that is), we have decided to take the plunge and create a Facebook page.  Much like our Twitter account, the Facebook page will keep the world updated on everything happening at Chappell & McCullar, from Michael’s latest blog to information on our current featured item.

If you have a moment, please click through to our page and click “Like.”  And don’t forget to leave us a comment, too!

Working our way through the economic doldrums, and complaining about it to my wise old friend Anita Shanahan, her pithy rejoinder was ‘Well, it isn’t wartime, is it?’ She has posed that rhetorical question to me before, under similar circumstances to fore stop my whingeing. And, of course, as tough as things are, few of us in the developed west know hard times or privation. For Keith and me, we have yet to require any cinching up of our (designer) belts.

What’s put me in mind of this is a highly decorative and exquisitely wrought screen/room divider that, frankly, we are surprised is still in our inventory. With a montage of London landmarks either side, silkscreened on to Formica, it is framed in gilt bronze, with each panel having a pair of finials that are reminiscent of, depending upon whether your bent is connoiseurial or governmental, either the Palladian obelisk-shaped chimney pots of Chiswick House, or the Beaufort portcullis. Regardless, the overall effect betokens what became known as the Festival Style- a use of period motifs restated in a mid-20th century idiom, and rendered in contemporary materials. Formica? One forgets how profoundly innovative was this use of melamine resin in domestic interiors. I have to say, about the happiest moment of my mother’s life was when she had easy to clean Formica counters installed in her new (circa 1960) kitchen. Times do change…

But, of course, the introduction of new building, new design, and everything else associated with the 1951 Festival of Britain, yet surviving nicely in London in the form of the Southbank Centre, was to jar a nation into looking forward, that had been so beggared physically and spiritually in the recent past. The extent of the devastation just in London is hard to comprehend, but as the physical damage was cleared away, that the nation, for nearly a decade after the conclusion of the conflict remained on ration was a daily reminder of a conflict that, for most Britons, was not yet completely over.

Suffice to say, the only thing Keith and I have had to queue for lately is to pay for our popcorn at the movies. So, right again, Mrs. Shanahan- hard times? Hardly…