Panel-back armchair
Category
Furniture
Date
1680 - 1700
Materials
Carved, turned and joined oak, some later replacements of pine
Measurements
118 x 61 cm
Place of origin
South-West Yorkshire
Order this imageCollection
Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire
NT 959667
Summary
An oak double panel-back open armchair, South-West Yorkshire/East Lancashire, circa 1680 - 1700. With a high arched cresting edged with S-scrolls above a pair of carved birds amidst scrolling foliage. Once with ears flanking the rear uprights and beneath the cresting. The rear uprights applied with slender split baluster mouldings. The back framed with two panels, the uppermost carved with another pair of birds and foliage and with moulded sight. The lower with a moulded arcade and carved with swirling scrolls. The seat replaced, and between downswept arms on columnar and ring-turned supports descending to conforming front legs and block feet. With moulded seat rails and rectangular-section stretchers. During conservation work in 2003 a small piece of newspaper was found packing the left arm's joint with its front support. The scrap of newspaper was dated 1792 and related to Bradford. This chair has a later seat and the two side stretchers are replacements. It almost certainly once had a pair of 'ears', probably in the form of birds, beneath the ends of the cresting rail (Chinnery, 1979).
Full description
Once thought to have come from the 17th century house at Nostell, surviving bills and receipts suggest that much of the oak furniture at Nostell Priory was in fact purchased by Charles Winn (1795 - 1874), who inherited a house with many rooms unfinished. An interested antiquarian, Winn chose to furnish some of the rooms, such as the Lower Hall, Vestibule and West Passage, with furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries. Payments were made by Winn to E. Terry of Thornes, near Wakefield, for 'sundry pieces of antique oak furniture' in 1834 and to John Swaby, a curiosity dealer of Wardour Street, London, for 'several pieces of old carved wood' in May 1821, some of which were probably used by Winn to reconstruct parts of the interior of Wragby Church. Swaby made frequent buying trips to the Continent, and may well have supplied Winn with pieces like NT 959707, a Continental armoire, and NT 959805, a largely 16th century French cabinet in the manner of du Cerceau. Some pieces, such as NT 959709 (a chair), NT 959708 and NT 959826 (both settles), amongst others, were obviously fabricated in the 19th century, although all such pieces at Nostell do incorporate timber from genuine pieces of early furniture. Much of the oak furniture at Nostell is typically Yorkshire in style.
Provenance
Probably purchased by Charles Winn (1795 – 1874), thence by descent and transferred from the Treasury in lieu of tax in 2007.
References
Chinnery, 1974: Victor Chinnery. Oak furniture: the British tradition. [n.p.]: Baron Publishing, 1974., p. 475, Figure 4:129 Westgarth 2009, M. Westgarth, 'A Biographical Register of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers', Regional Furniture XXIII (2009), 1 - 205, 17, 35 - 41, 109, 131, 169 - 171, 172 & Plates 21 - 27 Raikes, 2003: S.Raikes. ““A cultivated eye for the antique”: Charles Winn and the enrichment of Nostell Priory in the nineteenth century.” Apollo 157.494 (2003): pp.3-8., 5 - 6, Figure 6