Antique Chairs

HERE is a certain class of collectors of old furniture and other antiques who seem to take a special delight in acquiring and displaying the hideous and useless monstrosities of an unenlightened age. They will give the place of honor to some battered and dilapidated old relic and call it "quaint."

Fortunately for most of us, however, not all antiques fall into that class, and there are plenty of fine old things whose intrinsic beauty and sincerity of workmanship raise them to the high level of works of art. Like the Iliad or the Taj Mahal, they will abide when this generation's fads have vanished.

Fortunately, too, there are plenty of antiques that are as useful to-day as they ever were-and the best of them were originally made for use-and that possess features that make them better furnishings for our modern homes than the newer, and perhaps less artistic, creations, provided the architecture of the house and the other home surroundings are not too violently out of keeping. Can you imagine a more beautiful receptacle for a bouquet of roses than a Wedgwood vase, and does the subtle charm depart from an old chair when it is fit to be sat upon?

Take the single subject of old chairs, for example. For delicacy of design, fineness of carving, generosity of curve, and perfection of proportion, the best examples of Chippendale's mid-period work have never been surpassed anywhere, and as to the materials, the solid, fine-grained, rich-toned mahogany that he used is simply unobtainable to-day. The wise col-lector will think of these things. He will not buy an antique merely because it is old and rare. He will think of it, unless he is stocking a museum, as a possible addition to the furnishings of his home, and will apply to it all the rigid requirements that a modern piece would be obliged to meet to be acceptable.

In the brief account of old chairs which will follow-for the subject is too large a one to discuss exhaustively within the limits of a single chapter-I will ask you to search between the lines for such information or suggestion as may enable you to decide which of these types of old chairs is best suited to modern use. When you buy an old chair, deter-mine if it be really old, genuine, and fairly priced. But examine it also for good workmanship and intrinsic beauty, and try to see if it be comfortable. Chairs to be seen and not sat upon are intolerable encumbrances. The following account itself will be chronological, for the most part, for the sake of convenience, but the purpose of it is practical.

French Chairs

Cromwellian and Back Chairs

Windsor Chairs

Georgian Chairs

Thomas Chippendale Chairs

Sheraton Chairs