The natural world provides a huge vocabulary to help us describe what we do and make. Birdseye can be a pattern in maple, a textile and a chile. In the workshop, names of animals (or parts there of) are a shorthand to describe details on furniture, components of tools and workbench appliances.
With input from Chris Schwarz I put together a collage of animal-inspired woodworking features, tools and one misinformed rabbit.
You are free to print this, however, I can’t guarantee resolution on a very large print.
‘Full hand’ armchair. Collection of the National Museum of Australia.
My first thought on seeing the photo of this chair was, “that certainly is an armchair.” It turns out that was the maker’s intention – to make a visual pun of an Armstuhl.
The chair was made by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Zilm, known as Wilhelm, when he was in his late 60s. Three of the four chairs were later repainted and decorated by one of Wilhelm’s youngest sons.
A Very Short Zilm Family History in Australia
After King Frederick William III mandated a new Lutheran church service many “Old Lutherans” rejected the change and, to avoid persecution, decided to migrate to other countries. Groups of Old Lutherans migrated under the leadership of their pastors with many going to Australia and North America. Five members of the Zilm family left their town of Goltzen in the Brandenburg area of Prussia in early 1838: Johann Christian (known as Christian), his wife Anna Dorothea, their sons Wilhelm and Friedrich and Christian’s brother and sister.
The family sailed on the ship Bengalee and arrived at Port Adelaide in South Australia in November 1838. The Zilms and about 50 other families helped to found the town of Hanhdorf (about 28 km southeast of Adelaide). On arrival in Australia, Wilhelm was weeks short of his 11th birthday and his brother Friedrich was 7.
From Hahndorf2019.org.au. Date estimate 1860s?
By 1853, the much larger Zilm family decided to go north to the Barossa Valley and helped found the community of Nain. In 1875 Wilhelm, now age 48, moved with his wife and nine of his children further north to Booleroo. He had acquired 450 acres to clear and to ultimately grow wheat.
Wilhelm (center) his wife Luise (on the right) and some of their many children, date unknown. Collection of the National Museum of Australia.
The Zilms named their Booleroo homestead Pantakora, and in addition to the family home, there was a workshop for the farm (originally the first house they built) used for equipment repairs and blacksmithing and another small building for carpentry work.
Wilhelm and his sons had both the metal and woodworking skills required to run a farm. They were able to make and repair farm equipment, furniture and other wares for the home.
When Wilhelm arrived in Australia he was of an age when a boy might enter an apprenticeship. He certainly helped his father as the newly arrived families built homes and made serviceable furniture. Wilhelm would have had ample opportunities to observe and help men who, although they originally migrated to farm, had trained as carpenters and cabinetmakers (some of whom would later resume their former occupations). Finally, he was a member of a community that migrated together and worked together for the benefit of all. Passing along needed skills, such as metal working and woodworking, was a value to the entire community.
Chairmaking at Pantakora
The woods used to make the chairs were red gum and other eucalyptus species. According to Noris Ionnou’s research, the carpentry bench was essentially a huge table with a thick red-gum top (about 20 cm) and splayed legs. With this basic setup, Wilhelm and his sons made staked tables, chairs and stools (all of which readers of this blog will be familiar).
‘Knuckle or closed fist’ chair (#1) with outward curving arms. Collection of the National Museum of Australia.
The chairs seats average 4 cm in thickness and to lighten the weight of a chair (except the “full hand” chair in the topmost photo) the central part of the underside of the seats were carved out. Seats were not saddled. Chair legs were squared or rounded and staked and wedged to the seat. The back slats all have the same shape: narrow at each end tapering to a wider middle. Two of the four chairs have two round spindles (or sticks) in the back rest. The crest rails are a tablet form and have a slight curve. Screws were used to attach the crest rail to the back slats.
Wilhelm used well-known construction techniques to make his chairs. Was a similar style made by other branches of the Zilm family or other Old Lutheran families? Did he develop the look of his chairs, or was it learned from one particular furniture maker? We don’t know, but there is a consistency in all the known chairs he made.
The carved hands aside, his chairs were a local style, made for daily use and to meet the needs of the family. The carved hands were his unique addition for his and his family’s enjoyment. In other words, Wilhelm made true vernacular chairs.
Decoration and a Few Other Details
Full hand with fingernails on the left. Knuckle or closed fist (chair No. 2) on the right.
Wilhelm made two types of chairs with hands. The “full hand” has four fingers including fingernails! As related by family members, Wilhelm carved the hands to replicate the natural action of hands draped over the end of the chair arm. He was also fashioning a visual pun: he put “arms” on an Armstuhl (armchair). This chair is also heavier than the other three and was the chair he sat in.
The other three chairs have small knuckles (or closed fists) at the end of the chair arm. The arms of one chair curve outward (chair No. 1 in the large photo above) and there are only three knuckles. This is the chair Wilhelm’s wife sat in.
‘Knuckle or closed fist’ chair (No. 2). Photo from ‘The Barossa Folk-Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia’ by Noris Iannou.
The other two “knuckle” chairs each have four knuckles with chair No. 2 having the addition of two back spindles.
‘Knuckle or closed fist chair (No. 3). Photo from ‘The Barossa Folk-Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia’ by Noris Ioannou.
The four chairs are dated 1895 and the original paint color was yellow. A nice, bright accent in a pre-electric and dark home interior.
There is some thought that the chairs are gendered. Wilhelm and his wife each had a specific chair and perhaps each family member had their own specific chair. It is very common for the parents to have specific chairs and the kids to each have their own until they grow up and move on (and then a younger sibling grabs that chair). I really don’t see a lot of difference between the knuckle chairs. It is one thing to make a chair for your wife, a lovely sentiment, but that does not necessarily give the chair a specific gender. Also, when the chairs were originally made they were all the same color and did not have the decorative designs we see on them today. So, I don’t see a gender factor.
Wilhelm Zilm, about 1895, State Library of South Australia.
At the time of Wilhelm’s death in 1906 (at age 78) his three youngest sons were living at Pantakora: Christian, Jack and Paul. Christian, a bachelor, inherited the farm and later left it to Jack. In 1937 Jack (also a bachelor) gave the farm to the married Paul.
Paul, the youngest son, is responsible for the designs on chairs. About 1910 the chairs were painted black. White, orange and red-brown paint was used to decorate the knuckle chairs. Other chairs he may have decorated are either in private hands, destroyed by later family members or otherwise lost.
The crest rails and the shaped back splats were outlined in orange. Legs were painted with concentric orange circles and the seats were given curved lines in orange and white. Swirls, leaf shapes, flowers and suns were in white. Dots were added to fill in the background. On his mother’s chair (chair No. 1) hearts, a common German motif, were painted on either side of the seat. (Note: design details on chairs Nos. 2 and 3 are difficult to see due to the low resolution of the photos.)
According to his family, Paul painted and decorated furniture and woodwork in the Zilm home. He also liked to carve. His designs incorporate both German motifs and elements often used in aboriginal rock, bark and body painting.
Top: detail of an X-ray style of rock painting, ca. 6000 B.C. photo from NIH, Washington, D.C. Bottom: stone hatchet, no date, acquired by the National Museum of Australia in 1987.
Outlining the shaped back splays and chair arms and then adding a central line simulates a skeleton and has similarities to the X-ray style of aboriginal painting. Outlining a figure and filling in spaces with dots are also a familiar part of aboriginal painting. Paul’s use of orange, red-brown and white, colors that can be obtained from the earth, are another element in common with aboriginal painting.
When the Zilms moved into the Booleroo area, well before full European settlement, there were still aboriginal peoples living nearby. How much contact Paul may have had with them we don’t know. But he was a creative sort and seems to have appreciated the colors and designs he saw.
Paul Zilm standing near the family home Pantakora. On the veranda is one of the chairs with carved hands (left of the blue arrow). Circa 1940. National Museum of Australia.
When the early German migrants arrived on the frontier of South Australia the first concern wasn’t to make beautiful furniture, but to build shelter. Furniture had only to be serviceable. Later, serviceable could be replaced with the familiar styles formerly made in Prussia. But as time and distance from the home country lengthened different chair styles developed. Regional differences also developed (consider the numerous variations in Welsh stick chairs). Influences from the new homeland were also absorbed by the furniture maker.
These four chairs were made when the Pantakora homestead was well settled and Wilhelm had several grown children to run the farm. After a half century of arduous work he had some time to enjoy making chairs that where a little different, a bit whimsical. He had time to indulge his sense of humor. Fifteen years after the chairs were made, Wilhelm’s youngest son, born and raised in Australia, repainted the chairs and joined symbols of the old home with the new and permanent home.
On Saturday, Chris Schwarz and I had our biennial chair conversation. I subjected him to a mind probe about his recently purchased a Welsh stick chair and an Irish Gibson stick chair he is currently building.
Suzanne: Please confirm if you have more Welsh chairs (made by other chairmakers) than house cats.
Chris: We are at a 2:5 chair:cat ratio. To be honest, Chris’s (Williams) chair has melted into the fabric of our daily lives and furniture because it isn’t a “room broach,” like so many pieces of custom furniture are. That’s the beauty of these chairs – they are so charitable. Welsh chairs like the one I purchased last week are as rare as hen’s teeth – especially here in the States. It’s a bit odd seeing it in an American house. I put it by my fireplace so it might feel a bit more comfortable.
Suzanne: Your newest chair was purchased during your visit with John Porritt. Not to get too personal but to use a term referenced in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (p.50) did you experience the “tingling in the bathing suit area” when you saw this chair? What struck you about the chair?
Chris: My first sight of the chair was less like a tingling and more like the aggressive groping I received from Kym Harper during 8th grade.
It was the second-best chair that John Porritt owned (the best one was in his house, see the gallery below). That chair is good enough to be in a museum.
Chris’ new Welsh chair.
What I like about Welsh stick chairs, especially the one I bought, is their motion. Most chairs are designed to look fairly balanced and stable to give you the confidence to sit in them. Welsh chairs, on the other hand, have a wildness.
The chair rakes back aggressively. It suggests it will be a comfortable chair to lean back in. And it delivers on the promise.
Also, there are many little details of this chair that deserve study. Some of the tenons into the arms are blind – not through. That’s quite unusual, and I am eager to work out the best way to build a replica. The crest rail has some subtle shaping that is difficult to photograph. The ends have a bit of a waterfall-like curve.
The armbow is clearly a bent stick that has been resawn, scarfed and bookmatched. It’s just a lovely piece of work. The only bummer about the chair is the shiny finish – likely shellac – which looks a bit wrong to me. I’m going to live with it for a while before I consider cutting it back. I’m not eager to mess with antique furniture as that’s not my specialty.
John Porritt’s chair.
Top view, Chris’ new chair.
Side view, new chair.
Suzanne: You have given a lively description of why this chair has such a strong pull for you. I’m looking forward to reading about more details after you have spent more time with the chair. As for the finish, live with the chair for a long while before thinking about a change.
When comparing the new Welsh chair with your American Welsh chair you wrote the chairs look distantly related, but also your chair is “uptight” in comparison to the old chair. That made me take a second look at the side view photo of the chairs. The older chair looks more relaxed and your chair perhaps has a stiffness to it. What elements of your chair do you think make it “uptight” and are you OK with that?
Chris: There are many elements of my chair that are more “uptight” in the craftsmanship. Some are obvious and some aren’t.
Obvious: I use hard edges and facets on every possible surface. I don’t like things that are rounded over. Even my seat, which is saddled and curved, has a sharp line surrounding it. The legs and stretchers are faceted – not turned or smoothed to round. I don’t round over the arms. My crest – same thing.
Less obvious: My sticks are consistent and have little tapering or entasis. One of the hallmarks (and charms) of an old Welsh stick chair are the small handmade inconsistencies in the construction. The sticks are not as regular and may taper or have a lot (or no) entasis. Also, I shoot for precise spacing of my sticks, which adds to the overall sharpness of the design.
I am, of course, happy with my design. It reflects the way I approach furniture, writing, cooking, music and making my bed. I like my desk to be clean….
But, I would like to be able to work in the older mode as well. This will require just as much thought and work. It’s not a sloppiness or a shortcut.
Suzanne: Adding to the sense of relaxation in the Welsh chair are the spindles under the arm. They tilt back in concert with the back of the chair and are another suggestion offered by the chair to sit down and lean back.
Your chair by itself is clean and it is evident you have thought through every detail. When placed next to the older Welsh chair the hard details of your chair stand out. If we were looking at two humans they would be an old pensioner next to an edgy teenager.
A few more questions about details. When you are working to make each detail exact and as precise as possible are you losing spontaneity?
Chris: Probably. But I think spontaneity in furniture should be in very low doses. Some people can make big design swings (and succeed) while building an object. I am not that kind of designer or builder.
Suzanne: Using pre-made dowels for spindles saves time, and you aren’t trying to make replicas, but does it take away from the Welsh aesthetic of the chair?
Chris: Perhaps. I use factory dowels in the classroom to remove a barrier that many first-time chairmakers face, which is the difficulty of making long, thin sticks. I make my own sticks for customer chairs. Even so, every stick – factory made or not – is scraped and shaped to fit. They do give a very consistent place to start, and they do contribute to the overall consistent look of the finished chair, like it or not.
Suzanne: Adding the sharp edge around the seat echoes the sharp edge of the armbow but does it make the chair more inviting?
Chris: I think the sharp edge around the seat removes the mushy line I see on many chairs. I hate mushy lines. My opinion is either have a sharp line or blend the seat and spindle deck together completely. The former is my approach because I like to repeat design elements up and down a chair. The second option (no line whatsoever) is one employed by old chairmakers who weren’t trying to show off.
Suzanne: You also wrote in a recent post you obsess over every detail. When do you know when a chair is finished and you can comfortably walk away?
Chris: For me, I spend a long time looking at my work from different vantage points and in different lights. I’m looking for things I can improve. I keep working until there’s nothing left that I can improve.
That doesn’t mean the results are perfect. There are lots of things on a finished chair that are not perfect. Those imperfections are details I cannot repair without starting over. A good example of this might be a wedge that is 5° off the axis I was shooting for. I can’t fix that without destroying the entire thing.
For me, making furniture is as much about looking as it is about doing.
Suzanne: I think it is the same for craftsmen and artists in any field. Step back, step away then come back to see what needs to be tweaked before saying the chair is done. You will also have a list of changes for the next chair because chair begets chair, no?
Chris: Yup. I have already made changes to my American Welsh Stick Chair. I incorporated those into a chair that hasn’t yet been made public. I also have a couple minor changes to make to the arms in future chairs. I don’t think it ever ends. Heck, I still make changes to my tool chests….
Suzanne: On to the Gibson, a variation of the Irish hedge chair! In “Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950,” Claudia Kinmonth wrote, “…although the origin of the name, which may be associated with Oldcastle, county Meath, is unclear. This design is distinguished from others by the distinctive ‘W’ (or less often an ‘M’) shaped arrangement of back spindles…Gibson chairs were once common in county Cavan, although they were generally made in northeast Leinster, especially counties Louth, Monaghan, Meath and Westmeath.”
The first Irish stick chair I found was painted green and not a Gibson but I loved it. Then, you turned up a true Gibson (although not painted green) and I liked it even more. These are wide and open-armed chairs. You have started making your first Gibson chair. What are your thoughts so far?
Chris: I’m in the middle of building the first one, and today I fit the arms to the front spindles.
A couple things really stand out for me with this chair. It seems to me to be an all-wooden version of a Morris Chair. The geometry and seat height (and other factors) give me the same feeling as when I first started making Morris Chairs in 1997 or 1998. The back leans 25°. That’s insane. Plus the seat is low – 15”. The position of the arms is similar. The extreme (24”) width of the seat is also similar to Morris Chairs. I’m not saying one influenced the other but the similarities are remarkable.
The best part of building the chair is trying to get into the heads of the chair’s original makers. This is necessary because there is obviously a right order of operations and a wrong order of operations when making this chair.
After I drew the chair full-size on paper and started to work it out at my bench, I received little flashes of communication across the centuries from Ireland. Things that aren’t completely obvious.
Like today: Mounting the arms on the front sticks first allows you to easily find the 25° angle of the two outside back sticks. Once you drill those, then it’s a piece of cake to drill the ‘W’-shaped sticks.
In other words, once you get into the briar patch, it’s obvious how to get out. Until then, it looks like a nut-doodle chair that is hard to build. It isn’t.
Mostly, I’m looking forward to sitting in it. My spine has a lot of questions.
Suzanne: I have to take you to task for your “Do the Irish have big butts in general” question on an Instagram post last week. I believe you could have used “generous bottoms” or “perhaps a bit wide abaft the beam” instead. The Gibson is a big welcoming chair and nothing wrong with that, boyo.
Chris: Apologies. But could you answer the question?
Suzanne: I’ll do some research and get back with you much, much later.
Chris Williams, your Welsh brother, will be returning to Covington later this month. What are you most looking forward to during his visit?
Chris: Mostly the arguing about the chairs. We work in very different ways. And we see the chair in different ways. He has baggage I can’t claim. And I have my own personal hang-ups. In the end, we’re both better for it. And I don’t have anyone else that I can talk to about this stuff who isn’t bored out of their minds after five minutes of splay-splaining. So my relationship with Chris is a healthy and wonderful thing. It is one of the greatest gifts the internet has given me.
Suzanne: What is the perfect place to put your chair (either one). Sit down and get comfortable. What are you drinking and what are you reading?
Chris: I like to be alone. The dream is to put it by a fireplace. Three-legged cat on my shoulder. Glass of red at hand. And a book of short stories by Wendell Berry.
Suzanne: My Welsh chair is by a fireplace, bottle of red and rereading “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” The Gibson under a tree, sipping a fine whiskey, memorizing “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” a cat sprawled next to me (because the chair has plenty of room).
The gallery has two more images of the green Irish stick chair and a gathering of Gibsons.
Mudejar carpenters of Teruel Cathedral, Aragon, Spain, 12th-16th c.
When I was 7 my father called me out to the patio to help him as he was building a bookcase. He told me to hold a string to the end of a board, hold it tight and don’t let go. He snapped the string, there was a mini-explosion of dust and a blue line appeared on the board. My reaction was something like this:
So, you might not be surprised I have a collection of line snaps.
It’s Ancient
What I find appealing about snapping a line (besides the magic blue line) is it is an ancient method used by carpenters, masons and artists. It is not complicated and it works. Ancient Egyptians used red and yellow ochres and black inks for their lines. We can still see traces of the lines used on wall paintings to divide panels and keep figures in alignment.
Tomb of Horemheb, Saqqara, 18th Dynasty, 1319-1292 B.C.
One of the folktales about Lu Ban, legendary carpenter of China (born around 500 B.C.), is about how he taught stone masons the use of the ink line marker. It is said the ink marker was one of the tools he always carried with him.
Lu Ban snapping a line.
It’s Biblical
Isaiah 44:13: The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line…
Construction of Noah’s Ark, Northern Italy, ca. 1300.
Although we can’t see what kind of marking tool is used, the carpenters in the third row down on the left are about to snap a line.
Hours of Catherine of Cleves (MS M.917, 105r), Utrech, ca. 1440, Morgan Library.
This is captioned as “Solomon observing the measuring of the timber.” We know the carpenter is going to snap a line.
Detail from the restored Construction of Noah’s Arc, fresco by Piero di Puccio, Camposanto di Pisa, 14th century.
In this Ark scene it appears a line will be cut at an angle across the board rather than the board’s length. The ink pot is near the foot of the carpenter in blue.
Engraving of the painting known as The Raboteur, attributed to Annibale Carracci, late 16th or early 17th century.
It probably isn’t too far off the mark to state most of the line snapping in the New Testament is to be found in scenes of Jesus helping his Joseph. Here again, only the line can be seen.
It’s Universal
The scenes on the left and top right are from various sections of the “Lu ban jing” written around 1600. On the left a line is about to be snapped; at the top right the carpenter’s modou is on the ground (look for the wheel). On the bottom left is a Korean carpenter with his line marker positioned with his other tools. The artist is Kim Jun-geun, who documented many tradesmen in a vernacular style (late 19th to early 20th century).
In the foreground the older carpenter holds the sumitsubo and is about to snap the line as the apprentice holds the end.
Portion of the scroll Kasuga Gongen Kenki Emaki by Takashina Takakane, ca. 1309.
This scroll was made using paint and ink on silk. It shows consecutive tasks: marking a log to be split, snapping a line on a board to be cut or split, carpenters sitting on a board and splitting it in two.
Processing beams for use in mines, France, 1529, BnF.
In the middle of the scene the inked line has been stretched and the square ink box is nearby on the ground.
Both of these images are 16th century German. On the left the line has been pulled from the ink box, on the right the reel with wound-up line is on the ground with a round ink pot(?) to the right.
Tools: Rotating Spindles to Chalk-O-Matic
Left: Ancient Egyptian mason’s line, Middle Kingdom tomb at Deir el Bahri. Right: carpenters, Madras, India, ca. 1785, V&A Museum.
The mason’s line has a rotating spindle and bears a strong resemblance to the spindle held by the Indian carpenter (top left in the painting).
From ‘Ancient Carpenter Tools’ by Henry C. Mercer.
The majority of the spools and reels shown were types used in Europe and the Americas. The one outlier is the Korean line marker (bottom right) from Kangkei (now known as Kanggye). Note: Henry Mercer wrote “twanged.”
The Japanese sumitsubo is still used today (as are more modern line markers). The 20th century Stanley chalk line with the very American name “Chalk-O-Matic” is still found in many a tool box.
As the handle on the sumitsubo is turned, string unwinds from the wheel and is pulled over ink-soaked cotton wool in the bowl and exits through the hole on the end. Chalk is enclosed in the Chalk-O-Matic and as the string is pulled out it gets a nice coating of blue chalk and basically works the same as the sumistubo.
My favorites: on the left a beautifully scaled fish sumitsubo; top right is a Chinese shipwright’s mondou (from the book “China at Work” by Hommel), bottom right is another boat-shaped sumitsubo (Skinner Auctions).
Woodblock, Edo Period, Harvard Art Museum.
The Japanese sumitsubo and try square are often pictured together in woodblock prints. And there’s a reason for that.
Taking another look at a detail in the Takashina Takakane scroll you can see both carpenters in the foreground are using a sumitsubo and a square as a plumb-line.
Suzuki, Masaharu, 1874 in “Wood and Wood Joints: Building Traditions of Europe, Japan and China” by Klaus Zwerger.
Another illustration of how the two tools are used together as a plumb-line.
Back to Antiquity
Ancient Greek carpenters also used snap lines (of course they did). They used red and black lines. Although I don’t have an image there is a passage from “The Greek Anthology” by W.R. Paton in 1916 that you might like to read (a translation of the Anthologia Palatina). Numbers 204 and 205 are by Leonides of Tarentum, a poet from the 3rd century B.C. Click on the image to make it easier to read in either Greek or English.
