{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O369943"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O369943/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GK0448/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GK0448/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2013GK0448","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O369943/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O369943","accessionNumber":"W.18-1973","objectType":"Armchair","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Armchair, from Chastleton House, Gloucestershire, with ebonised beechwood frame, upholstered with ‘Sky’ blue silk material of ‘bizarre’ pattern and fitted with a squab cushion.\r\n\r\nThe back is tall and comparatively narrow, has an arched crest-rail and rakes sharply backwards from the seat frame. The padded arms spring from near the front legs and curve upwards to form rounded wings. There are pierced openings behind the front uprights.\r\n\r\nThe interior of the back and sides, the front seat rail and the squab cushion are upholstered in ‘Sky’ blue silk material of ‘bizarre’ pattern. The exterior of the back and sides are upholstered in ‘sky’ blue woolen (worsted) material. The ‘T’ shaped squab cushion has an inner covering of white leather.\r\n\r\nThe ebonised frame has short, voluted scroll front legs with gadrooned peg-top feet, joined by and arched front stretcher, carved with scrolls and acanthus leaves. The back feet are partly turned and rake outwards towards the base. The side, centre and back stretcher are turned.\r\n\nLabel text 1980: \r\n“That this was a chair of high quality is indicated in the nature of the silk top-cover, a large piece of which may be seen on the inside face of the wing. It is a blue damask brocaded with two sorts of silver gilt thread and with crimson details.\r\nThe material was almost certainly woven at Spitalfields where this particular blueish crimson was favored. Its pattern indicate a date of about 1706. This silk could equally well have been used as a dress-material, the patterns of which changed every season following the fashion set by the French silk-designers. The style during this period is therefore readily datable.\r\n\r\nTwo stripes of red material run down the inside back and across the cushion. The side faces and outside back of the chair are covered with a blue worsted material.\r\nIt will be seen that the padding on the back is held in place with random stitching. It consists of straw, flock and horsehair. The cushion is filled with down and has an inner case of white kid. It nestles in a well formed by firm rolls filled with straw.”\r\nTaken from original accession record: “This is a rather narrow-winged chair which nevertheless embodies all the features common to this class of chair in the 18th century. The silk material on it can be dated very accurately to c. 1705-06 and is English, as the strong blue tinge of the red colour shows. The carved stretcher would otherwise a date in the last decade of the 17th century but the presence of this material on the chair - an expensive material which would only have been used on a fashionable chair - suggests that one may have been dating seat-furniture with such arched front-stretchers rather too early.\r\nThe short legs and stretchers are all the woodwork that is visible. The components are stained black. An unusual feature is the opening below the armrests, behind the upright.\r\nThe structure is of beechwood. Padding of chaff and hair is packed into suitably-shaped bags of whitish canvas. The padding of the back is secured by random stitching with linen thread. The arms have in addition been covered in some horsehair faced with a coarser material. The seat-webbing is about 2 inches wide, brown and white with 4 inches spacing.\r\nThe seat has a ‘ring’ of padding round the four sides that locates the thick cushion  which has an inner covering of white leather.\r\nOver the padding and at the back is a layer of blue woollen (worsted) material and the silken to-covering is laid over this. The top-covering comprised two vertical bands of red ribbed silk flanked by the rich silk material already referred, namely a ribbed silk with a blue ground brocade with silver gilt, white and red thread, in a ‘bizarre’ pattern.”\r\n\r\nW.18A-1973 SILK: Fragment of brocaded silk (10.8 x 17.5 cm): The silk has a slate blue ground with a small-scale bizarre pattern in cherry red and pale blue. Some details are brocaded in badly tarnished silver thread.\r\nThe silk is associated with an English chair c. 1705 from Chastleton House and the shape certainly suggests the wing of a chair. The silk may, perhaps, have been reused.\r\nTechnical details: Tissue (Lampas). Tabby ground, the pattern bound in 3/1 twill. Découpure 4. The binding warp is probably taken from the ground.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nUndated label text:\r\n“QUEEN ANNE UPHOLSTERY\r\nEnglish, about 1706. From Chastleton, Oxfordshire.\r\nAlthough a high proportion of antique chairs are upholstered and upholstery can have an important, sometimes dominant, effect on the appearance of seat-furniture, the study of ancient upholstery is still in its infancy and the Department of Furniture and Woodwork is carrying out pioneering work in trying to remedy this.\r\nEvidence is gradually being amassed from many different sources. Although a good deal of ancient padding, webbing, etc. can still be found on old chairs that have not been completely “stripped out” for reupholstering, it is most unusual to find completely untouched specimens of ancient upholstery.\r\nThis chair has largely lost its original silk covering but all the rest of the original upholstery is still present. The Museum was delighted to be able to secure it in this state and intends to preserve it as it is, only a few stitches have been inserted in places to ensure it does not deteriorate. \r\nThe chair can be dated by the silk material. Work carried out in the Department of Textiles on the dating of fashionable patterns in woven silks (new patterns were introduced annually) enables us to date the original covering, and therefore the chair, to about 1706 - perhaps a decade later than most furniture-historians might have guessed. The quality of the silk (which is brocaded with gold thread and was therefore costly) makes it evident that this particular chair was a fashionable piece of furniture in its day.” \r\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"silk (textile)","id":"AAT243428"},{"text":"beech","id":"AAT11948"}],"techniques":[{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"},{"text":"upholstery","id":"x37978"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"},{"text":"Woodwork","id":"THES48877"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2013GK0448"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES342179"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Armchair","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Great Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""},{"place":{"text":"Spitalfields","id":"x29420"},"association":{"text":"woven","id":"AAT53642"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1705","earliest":"1700-01-01","latest":"1709-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"130.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"","value":"","unit":"","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"130.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"74.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"74.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"87","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"34","unit":"cm","qualifier":"to top of rail","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"History: \nDate of receipt 06.11.1973\r\nBought for £200 from Mr. Alan Clutton-Brock, Chastleton House, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire\r\n\r\nReferences: Registered papers 73/2430\r\n\r\nPeter Thornton, ‘UPHOLSTERED EVIDENCE: or How the Members of the Furniture History Society came to assist in saving the remains of a Queen Anne Wing Chair’, in Furniture History Society Journal, Vol. 10 (1974), pp. 17-19 (4 pages),\r\n\nSimilar:\r\nBonhams, London, 19 November 2019, Lot 8 and 17 Feb 2015, Lot 300\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"beech, ebonised, with original upholstery of brocaded silk and wool in blue and red; from Chastleton House, Gloucestershire, English c. 1705","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Nancy Britton with Mark Anderson, 'The Evolution of American Upholstery Techniques: 1650 to 1900', in Ed. Karin Lohm, <i>The Forgotten History – Upholstery Conservation</i>. Linköping: University of Linköping, 2011. Papers of symposium held in Vadstena, Sweden in 2005, pp. 30-80, illus.p. 35"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Heather Porter, 'The History of Cushions and the Use of Feathers in Upholstery 1580-1800', in Ed. Karin Lohm, <i>The Forgotten History – Upholstery Conservation</i>. Linköping: University of Linköping, 2011. Papers of symposium held in Vadstena, Sweden in 2005, pp. 81-105, illus. p.90."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["W.18-1973"],"accessionNumberNum":"18","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1973,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LN7945","2019LT7947","2019LW6963","2024NT1419"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-01-08","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":true}}