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Description: | Weaving cane for chair panels is thought to have commenced by about 1664, the date recorded in a defence made to Parliament by the Cane-Chair Makers in response to an attempt by their competitors, the Woollen Cloth Manufacturers, to have their trade outlawed in 1689. (British Library; LR.305.a.7). In their defense, the Cane-Chair Makers claimed that they too were an important industry, employing many carvers and producing 72,000 chairs a year, many of them for export, cane being preferred to woollen upholstery or Turkey-work in hot climates. These Guild references relate to London where cane chairs were almost exclusively made, with the boost to manufacture brought about by the major rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1666 and the consequent demand for new furniture. The cane panels in these chairs are made of rattan, brought from the rain forests of South East Asia and Indonesia as part of the East India trade. Traditionally rattan was used for baskets and ropes and the earliest references to the material coming into England appear to be in the accounts of the East India Company for 1644, when it is recorded being used for tying up bales of cotton. The making of a caned chair such as this one would involve three trades - the frame-maker, the carver and the caner. Stamped initials, the marks of the carver or frame-maker, are often found on them and are evidence of piece-work in production. Sometimes the initials are found on tenons which are invisible once the chair has been assembled. These chairs were the production of thriving and commercially sophisticated English businesses, not the work of single craftsmen. Caned seats would usually be used with squab cushions. By the end of the seventeenth century the fashion was for tall narrow backs and legs of broken scroll or ‘horse bone' form. This chair, with its turned and moulded frame and complex carved details of a peacock, eagles and leafy scrolls, is a fine example. The displayed peacock is also an unusual motif, although the inventory of Thomas Warden, chair maker (d. 1701) records both phoenix and peacock chairs, implying that they were standard decorative features at the time. There are two similar sets at Montacute House, Somerset (National Trust). no image available Additions And Alterations: Replaced finials; restoration to back-posts and stretchers. When purchased, the centre of the back and seat frame were upholstered. They were re-caned in 1984 | Source: | Vads | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=9129... | Go to resource |
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