Chair

Paul Iribe’s ‘Nautile’ armchair is one of the most striking proto-Art Deco designs, with its sleek swept-back lines and low armrests formed as a tight nautilus shell spiral.

Born near Loughborough into a family of tenant farmers, Robert Bakewell (1725-95) is recognised as an important figure in the Agricultural Revolution – a pioneer of the grassland irrigation he saw while travelling in Europe and an innovator in the selective breeding of livestock.

Knowle Auction Rooms will offer this pair of tan leather Barcelona chairs at their next sale.

Scarborough saleroom David Duggleby posted a house record for furniture when a suite of oak Arts and Crafts furniture from the workshop of Cotswold School cabinet maker Peter Waals (1870-1937) sold as a single lot for £31,000 at their latest auction.

THERE can be few more instantly recognisable forms in English furniture than the Windsor chair. Since the early 1970s, Michael Harding-Hill has been well known as an authority on the subject, publishing ‘Windsor Chairs, An Illustrated Celebration’, a book which pictures many examples that passed through his hands over many decades as a dealer.

THE Oak Sale at Bonhams Chester is not the obvious place to find a 16th century Indo-Portuguese chair. Hiding in plain sight at the January 19 auction of predominantly British vernacular design was a rare survivor.

AT Waterloo, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) is supposed to have directed the battle from a position near the crossroads of the Brussels and Ohain roads.

FOLLOWING on from his magnum opus on the Welsh dresser, Carmarthenshire dealer Richard Bebb has turned his attention to the history of another quintessentially Welsh form, the ceremonial bardic chairs traditionally awarded to the winning poets at an Eisteddfod.

AFTER nearly 50 years as a dealer, Tobias Jellinek makes no apology for having written what he describes as “a practical book” about early English chairs, stools and other seating rather than a furniture history book.

FOR an item almost destined for a landfill site, this delapidated red leather chesterfield, found in the outhouse of a Northamptonshire rectory, wouldn’t be the first thing you would expect to generate international bidding.

The Frederick Parker Collection of Chairs, whose long-term future once looked uncertain, has now found a secure home as a study collection at London Metropolitan University.

It gives some idea as to how furniture connoisseurship has changed that the upholstered high-back chair pictured here could once have been accepted as an original furnishing from the bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. You may be sitting on the very chair that could solve a mystery.

LEADING specialist in early country furniture and distinctive period objects Robert Hirschhorn holds his fifth annual At Home selling exhibition at his Georgian house and showrooms in London’s Camberwell from September 16 to 19.

THE biggest surprise in the July 17 sale held by Skinners of Boston was provided by a pair of Chinese chairs, but the pair of 3 7/8in (10cm) high, Wedgwood & Bentley blue jasper portrait medallions of c.1779 right, depicting William Penn & Benjamin Franklin, also did well.

THE ups and, more depressingly, the downs of the market this year make the results of a steady day’s selling of material put together by Nigel Papworth at Diamond Mills’ (11.75% buyer's premium) Felixstowe rooms at the end of June look positively encouraging.

THE forerunners of their kind may have been a relatively humble form of seating, but, as two lots in the recent English furniture sales showed, it wasn’t long before the Windsor chair began to branch out.

ONCE criticised for its sometimes curious aesthetics, William IV and Victorian furniture is today more likely to be maligned for its relatively poor performance as a ten-year investment. However, there are still aces out there that merit the chase – and one turned up at Bruton Knowles' (15% buyer's premium) on May 27.

THE rare and unusual mid-18th century mahogany Windsor chair pictured on the front page of Antiques Trade Gazette No 1643, June 12, was not the only enigmatic armchair in Mallams' (15% buyer's premium) April 22 sale. The supporting cast to that £23,000 chair – an unusual hybrid combining the features of the English country chair with the timber and the modeling of urban cabinetmaking – included a Egyptian Revival walnut tub chair.

IT was amongst the shaded woodland of the Thames Valley that Windsor chairs are thought to have originated. The forerunners of their kind may have been merely a humble form of seating, but, as two lots in forthcoming English furniture sales show, it wasn’t long before the form began to branch out.