Are accent chairs usually sold in pairs?

Often, yes. Pair appears in 604 of 1,541 titles, so a buyer meeting this category is about as likely to be offered two chairs as one. Larger groupings show up as well. Sets of three, four, six and ten chairs have been sold together on Sellingantiques.

Which woods turn up most?

Mahogany leads with 286 titles, then walnut at 222 and oak at 158. Rosewood and elm follow further back. Beyond the staples the samples carry yew, satinwood, padouk, ebony, huanghuali and goncalo alves at the upper end, and beech, pitch pine and scumbled softwood at the lower.

What is a hall chair for?

It was made to stand in an entrance hall rather than to be sat in for long. Hard seat, no upholstery, and commonly a solid back panel carrying carving or a painted crest. It's the most identifiable named sub-type in the titles, with 85 listings using the phrase and 139 mentioning hall. Oak, mahogany and walnut are the usual woods.

How old are these chairs?

The dealer dates run from 1700 to 1940. Much of that is banded rather than exact: 19th Century accounts for 362 entries and Victorian a further 170. Beyond those, 1900s, 18th Century, 1880s, Edwardian and 1920s make up the bulk. Seventeenth-century oak backstools, wainscot and Carolean armchairs appear in small numbers.

Do French chairs feature in this category?

They form a substantial contingent, 177 titles. Fauteuils, bergeres and giltwood salon seating, with Louis XIV, XV and XVI, Empire, Directoire, Restauration and Napoleon III forms all present. Giltwood and gilt each show in around forty titles, and the carved and gilded work sits high in the range.

What are the more unusual forms?

Chinese seating forms its own small stream: horseshoe and yoke-back armchairs, concubine chairs, folding chairs and Qing throne chairs in elm, hongmu and huanghuali. Single oddities have surfaced too, among them a barber's chair, a musical chair with marquetry inlay, a spinning chair, a gossip chair and a five-legged bedroom chair. Origins reach to Burma, Ceylon, Syria, North Africa, the Levant and Piedmont, each once or twice.

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Antique Accent Chairs

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Single occasional seating made to stand apart from a dining set: hall chairs, side chairs, open armchairs, nursing and bedroom chairs, sold on their own or, very often, in pairs.