Learning to Date Antique Chairs

Although age tends not to be the main reason why we may choose to purchase different antique or vintage chairs, having a sense of how old they are can help us appreciate them even more. It allows us to understand why the shape and material are the way they are and can help us spot an early original from a later copy. Chair dating it turns out is a great way to hone your Antique observation skills!

Question Everything.....

Just like the childhood game of ’20 questions’ it is always smart to approach dating any chair by asking yourself simple questions based on the facts in front of you. The easiest to ask is what material the chair is made from? Plastic did not appear until the middle of the 20^th Century, iron chairs were not popular until the mid-19^th Century, Chrome and Aluminium emerged in the 1920s etc. The golden age of Mahogany was from the early 18^th Century to the early 20^th Century and although oak has remained in constant use for centuries the way it ages is unmistakable. Therefore, while you might not be able to instantly differentiate between 17^th, 18^th or even 19^th Century oak, you can probably work out from the colour if it is newer than that. Cane has been used in chairs since the 17^th Century but gets darker and more brittle as it ages and was less popular from the 1930s onwards, fabrics are highly fashion sensitive so should give you a big clue provided they are original (beware even old looking fabrics may be later replacements).

Left: A Victorian Prie-Dieu chair with original tapestry c1860s

Right: A 1930s Slipper Armchair of Victorian Style

The trick to using materials to date a chair is to use them to help narrow down the age as best you can. Once you get good at it you can quickly tell the difference between a mahogany or oak chair of the 1880s compared to the same chair design from the 1920s just based on colour and aging.

Look at the Details…..

Since a chair is a pretty basic form that has remained largely unchanged for thousands of years, most chair innovation has taken place in the smaller details which we often overlook. For instance, chairs were exclusively pegged until nails began to be used from the 18^th Century onwards. Nails at the time were hand cut (so the exposed heads look squared and hand-made). Screws only really grew in use from 1797 onwards when an Englishman invented a screw cutting lathe which allowed them to be made in industrial quantities. These screws all had slotted straight heads as the Philips Crosshead was not invented until the 1930s. Of course, from the 1960s onwards Philips screws quickly superseded the slotted screw in furniture in most cases. Bolts appear to have begun to be used to hold together chairs from the latter part of the 19^th Century onwards but also grew rapidly in popularity after WW2.

While traditional pearl glue was the only glue to join wood between the 18^th -mid 20^th Centuries and dries with characteristics that look like hard brown rubber, PVA glue with its distinct white colour was invented in the early 1950s and quickly replaced pearl glue in chair manufacture. From the 1850s onwards both bentwood and very simple plywood began to emerge, but plywood was limited in use until the 1920s when it began to be used for more structural parts of the chair. Bentwood formed from steamed and shaped beech poles rose in popularity during last quarter of the 19^th Century and was a popular affordable solution for cafés etc.

A French Late 19th Century Bergere Chair in Louis XV Style.

Hand Made or Machine Made……

Unlike other furniture it is not always easy to spot if a chair has been hand-made or not, particularly if it is covered in lots of fabric. Industrialisation in the early 19^th Century mechanised a great deal of production, but things like chair production were often a fusion of some machine and some hand constructed elements. This remained true even into the mid-20^th Century with companies such as Ercol. However obvious hand-made elements often suggest earlier dates. For instance, the way to tell the difference between a 17^th Century bobbin turned chair and its 19^th Century copy is that the pole lathe turned bobbins of the 17^th Century will not be exactly the same size or shape (in contrast to the machine-driven lathes of the 19^th Century where the bobbins will be all uniform).

Left: Hand Made 18th Century Oak & Inlay Carver Chair. (Recently Sanded)

Right: Machine Turned & Hand Made Jacobean Revival Carver Chair c1860s (new leather)

Fashions, Styles and Fads……

Since chairs are designed to appeal to the present consumer they are often led by styles, fashions, and fads. These details can be overtly obvious such as the emergence of the cabriole leg or lions paw foot at the start of the 18^th Century, or the large bold sweeping modernist lines of the Art Deco period. They can also be far more subtle such as the incorporation of Japanese influenced asymmetry during the Aesthetic period of the 1870s and 1880s or developments in castors. Having a solid understanding of different fashions throughout history can be invaluable to dating chairs accurately.

Because fabric coverings can be easily replaced, they are not usually a good indication of the chair’s age unless you know for sure that they are the original. But while fabrics are often changed, the underlying padding technique often remains unmodified. Therefore, it is useful to know that steel coil springs did not emerge in furniture until the mid-19^th Century (although lesser springs were in limited use before this) , that foam only appeared in the 1950s, that deep buttoning first emerged during the reign of William IV in the 1830s and that rubber straps (compared to jute webbing straps) became popular after WW2.

Left: Modern Reproduction of a French Louis XV Armchair

Right: Windsor Style Desk Chair c1890s

Repairs, Modifications and wear……..

Since chairs tend to be one of the most used and abused pieces of furniture in our homes it is hardly surprising to find that many have had to be repaired and strengthened over the years. A solid repair does not usually detract from the chair and often gives us a sense of how old the repair is since many were not professionally undertaken. A degree of wear caused by feet rubbing against certain elements, or due to oily hands repeatedly holding on to the armrest is expected and appreciated. We would expect chairs that were sometimes hundreds of years old to have some form of wear and repair so when we don’t see anything this can sometimes be a red flag that the item is not as old as it appears stylistically. Wear of course can be faked, but usually the places the fake wear has occurred, and the amount of wear created don’t make sense when you try to understand what initially caused it. Feet will rub the front stretcher quite hard, but other stretchers rarely.

Putting it all together…….

Armed with lots of snippets of information about your chair it should be possible to come up with a ballpark date. As chairs rarely have their date conveniently stamped on them (and designs can remain the same for tens if not hundreds of years) sometimes your date range might be quite wide. That is perfectly acceptable. If someone can add even more detail to fine tune the date even further, then all the better.  

Dating a chair sadly will not change how comfortable that chair is, but at least it will help you appreciate all the technical and stylistic developments that went into it. And these are things you can enjoy and ruminate over as you sink down into your chair with a well-earned cup of tea!

See below as we try to date a classic style of armchair........