How many come up for sale each year?

Around 89 walnut stools come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, drawn from an archive of 894 listings. A total of 185 different dealers have listed one, so this is a form almost any general furniture dealer will have handled at some point.

What does a Queen Anne style stool actually mean?

It describes the shape, usually a cabriole leg with a carved knee and a drop-in or stuffed seat. Seventy-four titles use the name. Many of those carry dates of 1900 to 1930, so the style word and the date are separate claims. The revival group is concentrated in the early 20th century rather than the period itself.

Why are so many dated only as Victorian?

Only 506 of the 894 listings carry a clean year. The rest are dated by reign or century. Victorian alone accounts for 148, with a further 138 given as 19th Century, and others as Regency, Georgian, Edwardian or bare 18th Century. Roughly a third of the archive is dated that way.

Are piano stools common in this category?

They are the single largest named function, at 101 titles out of 894. The mechanism splits two ways: 37 are described as adjustable or rise-and-fall, screwing up and down on a central column, and 29 as revolving or swivel.

Do walnut stools sell in pairs?

Often. Seventy-one titles say pair, and matched sets are a real part of the trade rather than an occasional thing. Paired footstools, window seats and cabriole-leg stools all recur, including one pair given as Queen Anne period.

What are the unusual forms that turn up?

Odd shapes appear once and nowhere else: an ecclesiastical prayer stool, a commode stool, a cock-fighting stool, a knotted-rope stool, a triangular stool and a Thebes stool. Italian carved grotto stools are the rarest recurring origin, appearing a handful of times at the very top of the range alongside 17th-century Italian and early 18th-century English work.