{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1578864"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1578864/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2021NA2696/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2021NA2696/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2021NA2696","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NA2697","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NA2698","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NA2699","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8508","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8509","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8510","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8511","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8512","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8513","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8514","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022NE8515","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1578864","accessionNumber":"W.6-2022","objectType":"Armchair","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This Windsor style armchair is a very distinctive Jamaican variant of the Windsor chairs exported from the U.S.A. in the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Jamaican Windsors are recognisable by various subtleties of design: the profile of the turned legs, long flat arms with 'shepherd's crook' terminals and the manner of shaping the back/crest rail which is more square-cut than the smooth curve of an English made chair. These details and the use of a local solid mahogany are all hallmarks of Jamaican made chairs. Windsor chairs are frequently mentioned in Jamaican probate inventories from around 1730, (and remained popular until the 1860's) but there is no evidence to suggest that they, or indeed any other form of chair were made in Jamaica before about 1750. They were mostly imported from Britain and America.\n\nNo evidence exists as to who in Jamaica made such chairs and little is known of the local craftsmen who imitated or reinterpreted English or American furniture styles learned from imported furniture. Cabinet-makers in Kingston, Jamaica such as John Fisher (d.1805) trained in London and worked in Charleston, Virginia before moving to Jamaica\n\nThe production of Jamaican made Windsor chairs resulted from the growing demand as the form popularly increased alongside the reduction of imported chairs from England and America. They were relatively cheap to make using locally sourced mahogany, a weightly timber that is more resistant to the attacks of insects and which could be used inside or outside as they were better able to withstand tropical winds.\n\nThe cabinet-making firm of Gillows of Lancaster enjoyed a lively trade with the West Indies from 1741 until the Seven Years War (1756-63) disrupted shipments; around this time local craftsmen began to meet the demand for consumer goods such as furniture. Following the outbreak of the American War of Independence, Gillows saw an opportunity to market Windsor chairs. They became their best sellers, lighter in weight and high backed, exported with loose legs and rails to be assembled on site. Pots of ready mixed paint were included in the shipments, to be applied on arrival in case of chipping. As yet there is no evidence to indicate that Gillows made any low-backed Windsor chairs in solid mahogany for export to the West Indies.\n\nFrom the 1760's until the outbreak of war, America was the principal supplier of Windsor chairs to Jamaica.. Furniture historians have identified a resemblance between the Jamaican pattern of chair and Philadelphia models. The Philadelphia workshop of Francis Trumble made only Windsor chairs, including a low-back model of similar form to the Jamaican Windsor. These were usually made in yellow poplar, rarely in mahogany, with less turning in the arm supports and legs and with more rounded arm terminals. Large numbers of such chairs were exported to the Caribbean islands including Jamaica. Before long this form was imitated by local craftsmen using indigenous woods although we know relatively little about who these craftsmen were. It is highly likely that American Windsors by Trumble served as models for the Jamaican version.","physicalDescription":"Low hoop backed top rail with shaped centre and sweeping arm supports with sharp pointed 'shepherd's crook terminals. The top rail supported by two turned uprights at the front and ten slender spindles fitted into the top rail and the seat. The shaped dished seat supported on four turned and splayed legs with three stretchers. The cross stretcher turned and the side stretchers shaped.","artistMakerPerson":[],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Mahogany","id":"AAT12221"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Turning","id":"AAT53158"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2021NA2696","2021NA2697","2021NA2698","2021NA2699","2022NE8508","2022NE8509","2022NE8510","2022NE8511","2022NE8512","2022NE8513","2022NE8514","2022NE8515"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES344826"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Armchair","id":"AAT37776"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Jamaica","id":"x30045"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":"This Windsor style armchair is a very distinctive Jamaican variant of the Windsor chairs exported from the U.S.A. in the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Jamaican Windsors are recognisable by various subtleties of design: the profile of the turned legs, long flat arms with 'shepherd's crook' terminals and the manner of shaping the back/crest rail which is more square-cut than the smooth curve of an English made chair. These details and the use of a local solid mahogany are all hallmarks of Jamaican made chairs. Windsor chairs are frequently mentioned in Jamaican probate inventories from around 1730, (and remained popular until the 1860's) but there is no evidence to suggest that they, or indeed any other form of chair were made in Jamaica before about 1750. They were mostly imported from Britain and America.\n\nNo evidence exists as to who in Jamaica made such chairs and little is known of the local craftsmen who imitated or reinterpreted English or American furniture styles learned from imported furniture. Cabinet-makers in Kingston, Jamaica such as John Fisher (d.1805) trained in London and worked in Charleston, Virginia before moving to Jamaica"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1790-1830","earliest":"1790-01-01","latest":"1830-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":"There is no documentation confirming the date of this chair. It could be dated between 1790-1820 or even later. Chairs of this vernacular character preserved their design over decades and were not subject to fashion or innovation. Dating cannot therefore be definitive."}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Accepted by HM Governmentin lieu of Inheritance Tax from the collection of Robert Barker and allocated to the V&A, 2022","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"77","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"24/06/2021","earliest":"2021-06-24","latest":"2021-06-24"},"part":"","note":"Seat Height 61cm"},{"dimension":"Width","value":"61","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"24/06/2021","earliest":"2021-06-24","latest":"2021-06-24"},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"38","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Taken from the object","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"This chair was formerly in the collection of Robert Beacroft Barker (1960-2019) and was allocated to the V&A by Arts Council England as part of the Acceptance in Lieu of tax scheme.\nThe previous history of the chair is unknown but expert advisors believe it is certainly Jamaican made. It is unknown how or when the chair came to the U.K. \n\nRobert Barker was born in Jamaica and came to England in the 1970's. His life-long interest in Jamaican silver and furniture led him from an early age to study manuscripts and records at the National Archives of Jamaica, in particular records relating to eighteenth century inventories and other legislative documents. Though unpublished, his research into furniture makers and goldsmiths working in Jamaica made a significant contribution to scholarship in this area and is cited in many academic publications.\nThis chair together with a pair of identical design but with later surface finish, purchased at Christie's in 2008, also offered by Arts Council England, were used in Barker's dining room. One of the pair was allocated to Lancaster Museums and the other to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.","historicalContext":"In Jamaican probate inventories of 1750's, both high and low backed Windsor chairs are commonly recorded on the piazzas (verandas) of plantation houses. A 1761 watercolour by the Swiss artist Pierre Eugene du Simitere (1737-1784) who lived in the West Indies from 1756 to 1765 shows Charles Price, speaker of the Jamaican Assembly seated in a low, round backed Windsor chair under a triumphal arched folly on his Jamaican estate 'The Decoy'. By 1800 low curved-back Windsor chairs appear in printed caricatures illustrating the act of 'creolizing'. <u>Johnny Newcome in the Island of Jamaica</u> is one of a series of racist satirical engravings published in London by William Holland in 1800 featuring the fictitious Mr Johnny Newcome and depicting low curved-back Windsor chairs. \n\n'Creolizing' came to characterise the Jamaican plantation house and social behaviour of the white elite. In the Caribbean, eighteenth-century white culture used it to refer to taking up a very relaxed body posture and reclining in an armchair with one's feet elevated, sometimes on another chair or on a table or even against a wall. This form of lounging became popular in the later eighteenth century and by 1800 was no longer a solely masculine activity. Diary entries show that ladies could also spend a morning 'writing, reading and creolizing....'.","briefDescription":"Mahogany armchair of the Windsor type. Low back with sweeping arms, turned legs and shaped seat.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"John Cross, 'The Transference of Skills and Styles from the American to Jamaican Furniture Trade during the Eighteenth century', <i>Journal of Southern Decorative Arts</i>, 30, 2004 pp.49-73\n\n\nSusan Stuart, <i>Gillows of Lancaster</i>, Woodbridge 2008\n\n\nLouis P Nelson, <i>Architecture and Empire in Jamaica,</i> New Haven and London, 2016\n\n\nPeter Thornton & Maurice Tomlin,<i><i> '<i><i>The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House</i></i><i>'</i></i></i>, Furniture History Vol XVI (1980), p.183.Figs 168 and 169.\n\n\nChristopher Rowell (ed.) Ham House. New Haven and London, 2013 p.472\n\n\nhttps://genealogyplusjamaica.com/johnny-newcome-the-jamaican-planter\n\n\nChristie's South Kensington, 11th March 2008, Lot 257 (erroniously described as English)\n\n\nK.E. Ingram, 'Furniture and the Plantation: Further Light on the West Indian Trade of an English Furniture Firm in the Eighteenth Century' <i>Furniture History, </i>Vol.28 (1992) pp.42-97\n\n\nNancy Goyne Evans, <i>American Windsor Chairs,</i>Hudson Hills Press, USA 1996"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"","id":""}],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["W.6-2022"],"accessionNumberNum":"6","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":2022,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-05-02","recordCreationDate":"2021-02-09","availableToBook":false}}