A rare and documented George I fruitwood turner's chair, probably Devon or Somerset, dated 1718


All parts turned on a lathe, with the typical exception of the trapezium-shaped boarded seat and the highly unusual slender board engraved with the date and initials 'GM 1718' to the centre of the elaborately turned and raked back, the back uprights with integral ball-finials, and disengaged from the four-post base by means of a multiple ring-turned lower back rail, with similar turned arms, jointed into bold front posts, which are joined by a row of seven short spindles directly below the seat, and by turned stretchers all round, 60cm wide x 54cm deep x 115cm high, (23 1/2in wide x 21in deep x 45in high)
|Illustrated:- David Knell, English Country Furniture 1500-1900 (2000), p. 288, pl. 435. - Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British tradition (2016), p. 72, fig. 2:81. Turner's chairs are traditionally dated to the seventeenth and late sixteenth century. The author notes that this turner's chair is a 'rare dated specimen, which brings elaborate turned furniture firmly into the eighteenth century'.Provenance:- William Stokes Collection. - C. K. Binns Collection. Sold Christie's, Cold Overton Hall, Oakham, Leicestershire, 13th November 1990, Lot 730.