Antique dining chairs – Rococo to Regency and beyond.

Beautiful, elegant, practical and collectable – fabulous antique dining chairs can make a great centrepiece for a special room

The early history of the dining chair.

Up until the Renaissance period dining chairs were a relatively rare piece of furniture, before this ordinary people generally sat to eat on benches or on the ground.  Although there are examples or evidence of chairs dating back to ancient Egypt and the Tang Dynasty in China dining chairs were not widely used until the 16th century when lavish and highly decorated chairs became status symbols in the houses of the newly wealthy merchant classes in the major European cities.

These chairs were sometimes made of less durable softwood such as pine and other locally sourced materials but often the most collectable and longer lasting examples are made of exotic and hard woods such as mahogany, walnut, ebony, teak and eucalyptus.  Most antique dining chairs on the market today come from the period between the 18th and 20th centuries encompassing a wide variety of styles.

Important styles of antique dining chair

Windsor

Windsor chairs are often made of two or three different types of wood. They are characterised by thin, tuned legs with several variations of back including the bow, comb, sack, rod, fan, low, and hoop back style.

Queen Anne

Originally an 18th century design of dining chair with a horseshoe shaped seat and cabriole front legs.

The centre of the back support is generally in the shape of a Grecian urn.

The delicate, small scale Queen Anne chair often features inlaid marquetry decorations

Empire or Regency

These fabulous chairs feature sabre style legs, square upholstered seats , squared tops ,scroll backs, sometimes a harp or lute design in an open back and generally have gently sloping arms. The woodturning is elegant and simple and the craftsmanship superb.

Shaker Style

A simple and classic design much copied in modern furniture.  Shaker style chairs are sometimes called ladder back chairs.  These chairs feature slat backs which give the impression of a ladder.  Three four and five slat back chairs are commonly available with the backrest wider at top than at bottom; a woven or solid seat and legs which splay outwards.

Chippendale

Named after the highly renowned and very collectable 18th century English furniture maker Thomas Chippendale, who is famous for his rococo style chairs with ball and claw feet.  These are ornate Chinese influenced designs which sometime feature the characteristic Chippendale acanthus leaves as part of the intricate carving work.

Buying your special antique dining chairs

Perhaps more than any other piece of furniture, chairs are very likely to suffer from wear and tear especially if they have supported the rear ends of many diners for hundreds of years.  Legs, backs and joints may have been weakened and show signs of damage and repair.

With very early examples it can be quite difficult to find full matching sets with all the pieces still in reasonable condition – some are very likely to be missing or damaged.  The collector who is interested in really old chairs is more likely to find individual pieces.

However at Regent Antiques we specialise in beautiful, high quality, well preserved sets of chairs and can offer fabulous groups of six, eight, ten or even twelve chairs particularly from the Victorian, Regency and Art Deco periods.

Please visit our website or call or email us for further advice and details of our current extensive inventory.