The chair shown here was the first piece of furniture to ever register in my young consciousness. My grandparents had it in their house in New York, and I can remember it clearly when we lived there during my dad’s tour in Vietnam.
I was struck by the chair because it didn’t fit into the Platonic ideal form of a chair. Since that time, I’ve always loved this Victorian chair, and when it was up for grabs in my family, I snatched it.
Several readers have asked for some details on the chair after seeing the chair as a prop in a post last week.
The chair was made by E.F. Peirce & Co. (sometimes spelled E.F. Pierce & Co.) of Boston and was sold by Payne’s Furniture Co., also of Boston. Both companies marked the underside of the original rattan seat. Peirce was active as a chairmaker in Boston during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The chair is almost certainly oak.
The legs all have a major diameter of 1-9/16”. The spindles are 1” in diameter at the center and taper to 3/4” at the mortises. The front leg is 18” long. The three long legs are 26-7/8” from the floor to the point where they enter the armbow.
The armbow is made in three pieces. The hands are 1-1/8” thick. The backrest on top of the hands is 1-3/4” thick where it meets the arms and tapers to a point 3” above the two hand pieces. The seat is 16-1/4” square.
I have posted the photos at a resolution that is higher than normal. If you save them to your computer you should be able to use the dimensions above to piece together turning profiles and mortise locations.
Hope this helps.
— Christopher Schwarz
It’s a lovely piece. But, is it comfortable to sit in?
It is comfortable.
I’m kind of curious about the red box on the shelves to the left of the door.
Lynd Ward, “Six Novels in Woodcuts,” ed. Art Spiegelman (Library of America) 2010.
I am impressed. A first edition of God’s Man is one of my most prized possessions.
If those are your slippers than I’m also impressed to see you follow good workshop practice and avoid open toes.
We have one of these that has been in the family since the mid-19th century. I was always told this chair design is for cavalry officers who had a sword in either the left or right. The chair allowed for the officer to sit back comfortably against the back rest.
The furniture catalogs of the time merely say it’s an ideal chair for the parlor.
Its appearance may fly in the face of convention, but after seeing it, I tried an experiment. In a traditional chair, I turned a quarter right, putting one leg on either side of the chair leg. Ya know, it was really comfortable. The arrangement of the legs took all the pressure off my lower thighs. It was the most comfortable seating arrangement I have felt in a while.
Thank you so much Chris for sharing! I like to seat on the corner of a traditional chair and always wondered if any such chair was ever designed! and here she is! A very unique piece of furniture!
Chair style popular with the kilt wearing crowd.