WS 141 An East Anglian, possibly Suffolk, Windsor armchair
The highlight of the Chair Study day in September 2014 was without question the arrival of this chair which was brought along by an avid chair collector from the Midlands. What a wonderfully crafted elegant chair! It bears no resemblance to a Lincolnshire chair but is remarkably like an oft-overlooked chair on p.256 of Dr B D Cotton’s The English Regional Chair (1990).
If you read my short summary as to what makes a Lincolnshire chair, you will see that this chair fails on several points; firstly it does not have plain back legs, secondly the splat is let into the front of the bow rather than through it, thirdly the joint where the back bow meets the arm bow has a shoulder that sits on the armbow and fourthly the turnery design bears no relationship to any other Lincs chair. However the most significant feature for me is that this chair is just too well made to have come out of Lincolnshire. Just look at those stretchers that unite the legs: they have a delicately turned barrel in the middle of each one with an incise mark in the middle of each - what lovely detail!
Now compare this chair with Figure EA165 in Cotton's book:
© Dr B D Cotton The English Regional Chair 1990
of which he writes: "Armchair. Elm seat and splat, ash hoop and sticks, fruitwood legs and stretchers. Attributed to East Anglia. Typical Windsor chair configuration [...] The wheatsheaf splat is similar to those employed in certain of the Mendlesham group chairs. The manufacturing detail in the chair indicates a close relationship with the Mendlesham area chairs, and it may be that this style of chair formed part of the repertoire of this generic chair group."
For the chair pictured above all of the back support is the same. The design of the splat is similar to those sometimes found on Mendlesham chairs. However the detail that is most significant, but may be difficult to see in the picture above is that each leg has an incise mark to denote where the hole needs to be drilled to let in the cross stretcher: this is so common and a defining feature of Mendlesham chairs. Could it be that one of the workshops that Cotton identified making Mendlesham chairs was making these chairs as well and using details common to both? It should be noted that the leg turnings, an egg at the top and an egg and long reel at the bottom, differ from Figure EA165.
© William Sergeant 2019
Now compare this chair with Figure EA165 in Cotton's book:
 |
| © Dr B D Cotton The English Regional Chair 1990 |
of which he writes: "Armchair. Elm seat and splat, ash hoop and sticks, fruitwood legs and stretchers. Attributed to East Anglia. Typical Windsor chair configuration [...] The wheatsheaf splat is similar to those employed in certain of the Mendlesham group chairs. The manufacturing detail in the chair indicates a close relationship with the Mendlesham area chairs, and it may be that this style of chair formed part of the repertoire of this generic chair group."
For the chair pictured above all of the back support is the same. The design of the splat is similar to those sometimes found on Mendlesham chairs. However the detail that is most significant, but may be difficult to see in the picture above is that each leg has an incise mark to denote where the hole needs to be drilled to let in the cross stretcher: this is so common and a defining feature of Mendlesham chairs. Could it be that one of the workshops that Cotton identified making Mendlesham chairs was making these chairs as well and using details common to both? It should be noted that the leg turnings, an egg at the top and an egg and long reel at the bottom, differ from Figure EA165.
© William Sergeant 2019
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