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 Hearth
Chairs
Chairs that were too low for use at a table were
probably used at the hearthside, where their low seats kept the
sitter below any smoke billowing out into the room. Dr Bernard Cotton,
author of The English Regional Chair, commented on an early 18th
century example in a recent Christie’s sale:
“Arm chairs made with naturally low seats
often form part of the Scottish tradition, where the common practice
of having low or floor set fires made the low seats of many fireside
chairs particularly useful. This imposing example would probably
have been used by the head of the household, the height of the back
and the dominant splat emphasizing its importance. The use of raised
strips around the edge of the seat is a common feature of Scottish
chairs of this type.” Christie’s Catalogue 5753, 3/1/05
lot #29.
We have a seventeenth-century Scottish hearth chair
beside our woodstove, and very comfortable it is, despite its seat
height of only 12 inches. Its back is raked at just the correct
angle for John to stretch his legs out in front of the fire, despite
the fact that at six feet he’s probably twelve inches taller
than the man it was designed for – and it would have been
a man, sorry, ladies, but in those days there was no such thing
as equal opportunity in seating! One look at the wear on it is enough
to show how many people have sat in exactly that position over the
centuries. The simple strapwork on the back panel comes from the
Celtic rather than renaissance tradition, and its heavy, folky look
gives it a strongly northern feel. It’s unusual, and we’re
very fond of it.
This turner’s hearth chair, however, is English.
We have recently added it to our inventory. In the better type of
English house, the stone hearths were raised sometimes as much as
a foot above the floor. English hearth chairs are consequently uncommon,
particularly joined ones, like the Scottish one above. Turned chairs
were cheaper than joined chairs, so this one, which is plainer and
simpler than most, may well have come from a poorer household where
the fire was at floor level. It shows wonderful wear and patination,
and, like all three-post chairs, is much more comfortable than it
looks. For more details visit it on our website (where it is listed
under Early Oak, despite being made of ash!)
And finally here’s a little cottage hearth
chair from the early eighteenth century that clearly shows its roots
in the seventeenth. It’s lost its crest rail and rear stretcher,
and has a large blacksmith reinforcement running across the back,
but it’s sturdy, characterful and comfortable.
These last three chairs all show a lot of
wear -- they were obviously very popular in their day. There aren’t
many hearth chairs on the market, but we may speculate that many
more were made than have survived, and that hard use wore most of
them out.
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Sotheby’s
London: “The Age of Oak and Walnut,” September 14, 2005
A caveat: We did not view the sale personally,
and our comments are based upon catalog photos and descriptions
-- so read them with a huge pinch of salt! Both Sotheby’s
and Christies’ catalogs are infuriatingly inconsistent. Sometimes
they make no mention of condition, sometimes they say, vaguely,
“restorations” or “seventeenth century and later’,
and sometimes they are relatively precise, saying for instance that
a top may be associated. This inconsistency can be seriously misleading,
for it can imply that pieces without the word “restorations”
in their description are straight. This is rarely the case. The
presence or absence of “restorations” results from the
whim of the cataloguer and has nothing whatsoever to do with the
condition of the piece. Caveat emptor, or in this case, caveat lector.
Dining on Oak
All four low dressers sold, three within the “going
rate” of £7,800 - £9,600 and one at £20,400
– it was only slightly better, but must have caught the eye
of a couple of private buyers, neither of whom was willing to let
the other win! it did not seem a $36,000 piece to us.
Refectory tables did well: 8 out of ten sold, and
the two that did not appeared to have had later tops: the boards
were thin, and the overhangs at the ends were excessive. The increased
overhang makes it comfortable for a diner to sit at the end, which
was not a seventeenth century practice: in the period, diners sat
along one side of the table only. The catalog, however, made no
mention of their (almost certainly) associated tops, though in another
lot, 123, it did. Most interestingly, the highest price, £24,000,
was achieved by a reproduction, albeit one with a William Randolf
Hearst and J. Paul Getty provenance. As usual, there was a large
price difference between six- and four-legged tables.
Long sets of backstools did well, a set of 12 Derbyshire
type fetched £20,400 and a set of eight, also from Derbyshire,
went for £9,000. A set of eight Chas II caned and carved walnut
chairs, including two arms, went unsold (low estimate £25,000,
so reserve probably around £20,000.) They had later upholstered
seats.
Another hot category was small gate-legs, six of
the seven sold, and for prices that were well above the market on
this side of the Atlantic. The “going rate” was around
£6,000, and a couple of them sold at £8,400 and £9,000
-- $16,200 for a good, but not extraordinary, small gate-leg! Large
gatelegs, six to eight seaters, did less well, only one of the three
sold. The largest, a massive double-gate example, 6’1”
x 6’8,” was estimated at £25,000 - £30,000
and did not sell.
A very rare set of six joint stools fetched £36,000
and a pair went for £9,600. The “going rate” for
singles was about £2,500; again, at $4,500, well above the
market here.
Color Confusion
The catalog opened with a couple of nice quotes
from John Evelyn (1662). English oak, he wrote, was “was much
esteem in former times till the finer grain’d Norway timber
came amongst us which is likewise of a whiter colour. It is observed
that oak will not easily glew to other wood, not very well to its
own kind.” He praised imported walnut as well: “I say
we had a store of this material especially of the Virginia, we should
find an incredible improvement in the more sable furniture of our
houses.” He went on to praise French walnut for inlay work,
particularly wood from the root, or burr walnut.
What is interesting, and somewhat puzzling, is
that Evelyn clearly thinks of oak furniture as lighter in color
than walnut (“sable” is the heraldic color black, and
the word also meant “dark”.) Today, of course, the reverse
is usually the case. We have to wonder why. We know that some oak
was finished with linseed oil, which does darken with age, but that
hardly seems an adequate explanation. We wish they had color photography
in seventeenth-century England, but in its absence we must turn
to other evidence. Were the houses really furnished with light-colored
oak? If any of you have any insights here, please share them with
us, and we’ll return to the topic in a future issue of Acorns.
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