ladies/gents (grandmother/father) - chairs, singles/pairs

A gentleman's chair, gent's chair or grandfather chair is a term usually applied in Australia to a deep upholstered Victorian easy chair, often button-backed and with upholstered arms. The chair generally stood on short cabriole legs and had a 'spoon' or a wide balloon back. The 'show wood', that is, the polished frame, was usually mahogany or walnut, although many examples in Australian red cedar have survived.

There are Australian versions of the gentleman's chair, ladies chair and matching settees, usually made from cedar, and occasionally from blackwood. As cedar is a softer timber than walnut, mahogany and rosewood, from which the English versions were made, the carving is usually not as crisp as in the imported version. However the Australian blackwood gentleman's chair is often difficult to distinguish from a good quality English walnut example.

The Edwardian form of the gentleman's chair is much squarer in outline, with short turned legs and the arms are often supported by spindles. There was sometimes a row of spindles, like a gallery, beneath the top rail. The chairs were frequently upholstered in leather.

The cost of re-upholstering seating furniture such as a gentleman's chair, can be substantial, and it is financially prudent to pay a little more for a chair that is newly upholstered, rather than purchasing a well-loved example which will require re-upholstering in the short term.

A ladies chair or grandmother chair is smaller version of a grandfather chair, but without arms, sometimes, though misleadingly, referred to as a nursing chair. The grandfather and grandmother chairs were usually part of a drawing room suite consisting of the two chairs, a couch or chaise longue and four or six single side chairs.