Child’s high chair,

c.1660–80

The back is carved with the initials ‘IB’. This type of chair is known to have been made in North Cheshire or South Lancashire.

Victor Chinnery Catalogue

Description

An oak child’s panel-back high armchair, the shaped cresting with floral carving and flanked by pyramid finials over a floral-carved tapered panel initialled IB and flanked by downcurved scrolled arms raised on baluster-turned supports, the moulded plank seat above three arch-profiled seat-rails raised on column-turned front legs united by plain stretchers, the legs extended to form feet.

Dimensions

Ht: 41in. W: 17in. D: 15in.

Condition

Generally good. The tip of left pyramid finial broken. Patched mortice beneath left arm. The footrest replaced. Pendant finials missing from arches beneath seat-rail.

Comments

The form of the cresting and panel of this chair are typical of the regional armchairs of North Cheshire and South Lancashire, many examples dated or provenanced in the second half of the seventeenth century or a little later. See Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture – The British Tradition, Woodbridge 1979, pp. 481-6, Figs. 4:151-7. See also Anthony Wells-Cole, Oak Furniture from Lancashire & the Lake District, Temple Newsam 1973, Cat. Nos. 21, 26.

Mannerist/vernacular