Object Description
An exceptionally fine and rare walnut and sycamore comb-back Windsor chair, from the Thames Valley region.
The chair is of generous proportions having a large ‘saddle’ style seat carved from a single piece of walnut, surrounded by a gallery back, steam bent horseshoe arm rest and solid cabriole legs of sycamore, terminating on pad feet.
Further reading: There is a similar chair in the Victoria & Albert Museum labelled Richard Hewett and a further by Pitt and Hewett in the Wycombe chair museum, both chairs are from the Thames Valley and of exactly the same form and dimension as the chair offered. Many such chairs were made in the West of London where plentiful beech woods provided the raw materials.
The name probably derives from the town of Windsor, situated on the river Thames and therefore ideally located as a distribution point. Windsor chairs were, however, also produced in many other areas of Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries.
A Windsor chair is characterised by its construction; the seat is of solid wood, with legs and arm-supports dowelled into it.
Features • Carved solid walnut seat. • Vertical turned rails of sycamore. • Cabriole legs supported by turned and grooved H-stretcher of sycamore. • Fabulous colour. • Generous proportions. •
Literature: ‘The English Regional Chair’ By Bernard D.Cotton, page 33, plate 2. See plates 108 & 109, in British Antique Furniture, 6th Ed. by John Andrews, pub. Antique Collectors Club 2011. Note: The chair in plate 2, page 33 of ‘Cottons’ book is near identical to ours and is now part of the Wycombe chair museum.