A Pair of William IV Mahogany Hall Chairs
CIRCA 1835
Height: 36" Width: 16.5" Depth: 19" Seat H: 17
Inventory Number 8469-649
Price
$10,800
Description
Each pelta-form backrest centered by a heraldic crest and supported on scroll-carved stiles centering a leaf-carved waisted support, each plank seat raised on turned, tapering reeded legs.
Illustrated
-
Additional Information
Sheraton in his Cabinet Dictionary (1803) introduces hall chairs as “for the use of servants or strangers waiting for business.” With this pair, dating about 1835, it’s hardly business as usual! Great English houses favored furniture of a formal character, and hall chairs with their solid backs where highly suitable for classical treatment. The backrests of the present pair take the shape of a peltarion, or pelta, a crescent-shaped shield used by soldiers of Ancient Greece. Each is embellished with an unidentified heraldic relief of a coronet and a stag, and is held aloft by a richly carved rope-bound acanthus back splat and ‘C’ scrolls. Typical of the William IV period are the boldly turned front legs of the pair, with their thick gadrooning and toupie feet, seemingly heavy but lissome compared to the adornment of the decades that await.