A Pair of Regency Mahogany Hall Chairs

A pair of Regency mahogany hall chairs, each with carved backs, solid shaped seats and raised on turned tapered reeded front legs.

This pair of Hall Chairs are exceptional quality and have a coat of arms painted on the backs. The arms are those of a cross bottony (trefoil) above a red and white spiral striped pole. The pole, often called a barber’s pole, was a sign of a doctor or carer dating from the middle ages when the barber was oftentimes also a surgeon and ailments were treated by blood letting, the stripes representing both the blood and the bandages. These chairs were probably made for a doctor or surgeon.

The carving, reeded legs and supreme quality make an attribution to Gillows of Lancaster straightforward.

Circa. 1820

H: 33.5”,85 cms, W: 17”,43 cms, D:18”, 46 cms.

English hall chairs were inspired by the Grand Tour with the earliest examples following the shapes of the Italian ‘Sgabello’ chairs that adorned the entrances of Italian palaces in the 16th century. Designs copying these traditional forms were popular throughout the 18th century, with major English designers and chairmakers, such as William Kent, Thomas Chippendale, George Hepplewhite Robert Adam, Thomas Sheraton, Robert Gillow and others developing designs for these chairs, and as the chairs were to serve a decorative rather than practical purpose many of the designs were particularly fanciful and allowed the designer to give free rein to their creative expression.

In 1762, Chippendale suggested using hall chairs in ‘Halls, Passages or Summer-Houses. They may be made either of mahogany, or other wood and painted and have commonly wooden seats’. He added, that ‘if the carving of the chairs … was thought superfluous, the outlines may be preserved, and they will look very well’.

Initially, hall chairs were designed, in the words of Sheraton in the Cabinet Maker’s Dictionary (1803), to be ‘placed in halls, for the use of servants or strangers waiting on business’.

However, being the first and one of very few items to be seen upon entering a grand country or town house, hall chairs also had to make a clear statement on behalf of the owner, showing their power, wealth, individuality, taste and pedigree. The finest examples were immensely decorative, demonstrating sophisticated designs and exquisite craftsmanship.

With the explosion of wealth associated with the growth of global trade and the industrial revolution a new class of prominent families emerged, eager to cement their positions in society. Hall chairs, displaying the family crest, sent a clear message of a person’s status.

Today, these can be seen increasingly in both traditional and contemporary settings. Although rarely serving their original purpose, these wonderfully decorative pieces of furniture can be very versatile used as a good pair of bedside stands on which to put a book and a small lamp, while interior decorators place hall chairs anywhere in a house to make wonderful decorative accents or fill awkward spaces. Hall chairs can actually be used for occasional seating, too with a squab cushion to make them more comfortable. The rarest examples, are those retaining their original armorial device painted or carved onto the back: it helps to trace their history back to the original owners. If only these pieces could talk….. what wonderful stories they could tell.

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