Chairs: a guide to choosing, buying and collecting

Article number 10124404

Contents: Introduction; English Chairs; French Chairs; The Age of the Ébéniste and Menuisier; American Chairs; Windsor Chairs; Art Nouveau; The Modern Movement; Bibliography; Index. Back flap: Of all antiques available for purchase by non-millionaires, chairs are perhaps the most attractive. Chairs can be found at every kind of price between five and five hundred pounds; they can easily be housed and displayed in any household large or small; they can be resold readily when the owner wishes to realise his investment or to change to a different style; they can blend—if carefully chosen—with any style of interior decoration or with the owner's other furniture. This book traces the evolution of the chair from the beginning of history—the influence of design, protocol, experience and tradition that have dictated the forms in which the chair now manifests itself. Adorning its change from an insignia of importance and indication of the wealth of its owner to an everyday household object, it then goes on to trace the chair in England (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries), France and America (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries). There are also chapters on Windsor Chairs and on ‘Modern’ Chairs. The author, a lecturer and writer on antiques, has written a book that not only makes fascinating reading for the enthusiastic novice, but also serves as an invaluable guide to the already knowledgeable connoisseur and collector. Drawings by Alan Spindler. Photography by Ken James. © Peter Darty 1972. First published 1972 by Barrie & Jenkins Ltd, London. Filmset and printed in England by Cox & Wyman Ltd, London, Fakenham and Reading.