Windsor Chairs with Saddle Seat and Spindles

Pair of Windsor chairs, 18th/19th century English oak and elm…
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Pair of Windsor chairs, 18th/19th century English oak and elm with saddled seat, shaped central back splat with spindles (with minor faults)

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  • Back Splat - The vertical or horizontal piece that joins the back to the seat, or between the two sides of the chair. The back splat stabilises and adds additional strength to the back.
  • Spindles - Short turned pieces, used as stretchers or back supports mainly in cottage chairs, couches and day beds. Turned shelf supports and the railings used in the backs and arms of day beds during the late 19th century are also referred to as spindles. Until the coming of the industrial age, spindles, like all turned pieces, were made by hand, and should show some slight variation. With the introduction of the factory lathe, spindles and turned legs became quite uniform and standard.
  • Splat - The central back support between the top rail and the seat in chairs and couches. They may take a variety of forms, and run either horizontally or vertically.
  • Oak - Native to Europe and England, oak has been used for joinery, furniture and building since the beginning of the medieval civilisation. It is a pale yellow in colour when freshly cut and darkens with age to a mid brown colour.

    Oak as a furniture timber was superceded by walnut in the 17th century, and in the 18th century by mahogany,

    Semi-fossilised bog oak is black in colour, and is found in peat bogs where the trees have fallen and been preserved from decay by the bog. It is used for jewellery and small carved trinkets.

    Pollard oak is taken from an oak that has been regularly pollarded, that is the upper branches have been removed at the top of the trunk, result that new branches would appear, and over time the top would become ball-like. . When harvested and sawn, the timber displays a continuous surface of knotty circles. The timber was scarce and expensive and was used in more expensive pieces of furniture in the Regency and Victorian periods.

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