Amongst the broad range of occasional chairs open today the wingback chair has perhaps the most enduring pedigree. Few people browsing for furniture for their home today realise that the wing chair has a history spanning hundreds of years.
The wingback chair is a chair, which is usually completely upholstered, with wings rising up from the arm and joining the back at a 90-degree or wider angle. The original purpose for the wings were assumed to be to prevent drafts in old houses from reaching the upper body or to protect the delicate skin of gentrified ladies from the heat of a roaring fire in the hearth.
As one of the oldest and most popular forms of furniture, the wing chair, also known as a fireside chair or an easy chair, is easily recognized by its pair of protruding wings, its considerable depth, its dramatic presence, and its upholstered framework. The first wing chair appeared in the past due 1600s, but it was not really until after 1720 that its popularity became widespread.
Wing chairs are occasionally called fireside chairs, and for fine reason. Their design is perfect for enjoying the warmth of a fire while your back and sides are protected from chilly draughts.
However these chairs are not the earliest pieces furniture to use this approach to keeping comfortably warm. Wings were also used on some of the high-backed wood settles found in English manor houses and pubs/inns. Usually these settles were bare wooden benches but sometimes long cushions were added for comfort, long before the brand new kind of upholstered chair brought an extra level of comfort to the late 17th century.
The same chairs soon appeared in colonial America. Like other Queen Anne furniture of the earlier 1700s, they frequently had cabriole legs and curving lines distinguishing them from earlier styles.The famous cabinet-makers of the age, like Chippendale in London, designed elegant frames to set off the upholstery. If you want a true antique, remember that “Queen Anne style” is just that: a style and not really a guarantee that a chair is 300 years old.
Fabrics used were not really necessarily subdued or subtle. Bright patterns were seen in both colonial and Georgian drawing rooms. Restorers of 18th century antiques often prefer basic coloured fabrics, but this is not really necessary for authenticity. Leather upholstery is also a valid option.
If you look at antique French wing chairs, or newer chairs echoing the Louis XIV or Louis XV period, you might well see a lower seat in the berg?re style. Similarly, in 18th century England Hepplewhite tried lowering the seat in his designs. He called the wings saddle-cheeks, perhaps knowing that they were called cheeks, not wings, in France. Ears is their other name, used in some parts of Europe, and remembered in the old-fashioned British name lug-chair. (Lugs is slang for ears.)
American wing chairs, also called easy chairs, were often considered bedroom furniture suitable for anyone frail or tired, sitting silently in their room. Both antique and modern wing chairs may be associated with elderly people; a higher seat and back with built-in draught-proofing offer an appropriate type of comfort, and remind us that another name for this piece of furniture is grandfather chair.
In Britain, wing chairs remained in the parlour or living room. Writers in the Victorian era describing idealised scenes of family life round a blazing hearth frequently mentioned a fireside chair. 19th century chairs were frequently much more generously padded than early wingbacks, often filled with a very firm horsehair stuffing.
Contemporary designers now produce all sorts of shapes and sizes of wing chair, and yet the early Queen Anne shape has an enduring popularity.Though the functional need for the wing declined as homes moved away from open fires to central heating, the design motif remained steadfastly popular. And not really just in traditional furniture designs. Even with modernist furniture design in the 1950s and 1960s brand new chair designs using new materials (e.g. designs by Grant Featherstone 1951, Edward Wormley designing for Dunbar in the 1950s ‘The Egg’ by Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen, Denmark, 1958) either retained or re-invented the wing.
Today modern homes have changed their layout and function considerably and one will find occasional chairs in almost any room, with lounge or bedroom being the most common locations. Wingback chairs may have a classic shape but they can be upholstered in the funkiest of modern fabrics. You may be surprised that a 300 year old design remains as popular today whether you are furnishing in a traditional or contemporary style.
The author has written more about antique leather wing chair here: antique leather wing chair
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