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The Age of woods to give the look of the times without the expense. Inlay of
Hitchcock & The rosewood and other specialty woods such as cherry, birch, and maple
would be brought to a high shine, making intricate designs possible.
“Fancy” Chairs The timeline of this design period went from 1840 to 1910.
In an article posted at Victorian furniture was the first furniture style to be mass-
connecticuthistory.org, produced. According to the blog at newel.com, “During the
author Anne Guernsey Victorian era, furniture manufacturing shifted largely from hand-
refers to a craze happen- made to machine-made, making it far more accessible, and
ing in the 1800s as the because of this, Victorian Furniture was an all-encom-
age of “fancy” chairs as passing genre that included all types of furniture,
At left and below, this kicked off by Lambert American Victorian natural from chairs, set-
mid-19th century stenciled Hitchcock (1795-1852). wicker arm chair with fan shaped tees, and sofas to
Hitchcock chair features a These days were filled back with scroll and filigree design end tables, coffee
colorful fruit basket stencil with more entertaining selling for $6,750 online at tables, beds, and
across the shaped back splat at the home as well as Newel.com
and a cane seat. taking “callers” into the case goods."
This chair is currently When it came to seating,
selling for $450 online. home and establishing American Victorian design was on
the members of the full display indoors as well as out-
household on the social ladder. “During the second doors. The use of painted metal
quarter of the 19th century, ‘fancy chairs’ were all formed into delicate shapes, wicker
the rage for middle-class American parlors and dining bent into fanciful ornamentation, or
rooms.” Comfortable, attractive, well-made seating bringing setees and rockers into
became more important within an attractive home. nature made the Victorian lifestyle
Making such highly decorated chairs that were complete when entertaining, reading,
often customized using a variety of decorative or just relaxing in the shade.
stencils made the Hitchcock chairs very time consuming. Using his A chair’s design elements were
manufacturing ingenuity, Hitchcock increased production speed often the result of other influences of trending ideas
and output by developing a line of interchangeable chair parts. taken to their highest form. As noted by Newel,
According to the Connecticut History article, “Hitchcock manufac- “Victorian Furniture cannot be identified by its style of
tured all types of furniture: adult straight chairs and armchairs, legs or feet, as it drew upon influences from many other styles. For this
smaller chairs for children, long benches with detachable front rails reason, it can be said that Victorian, itself, is not a style but a period.”
called ‘Cape Cod Rockers’ or, invoking a then more common
stereotype, ‘Mammy Benches.’ His furniture was inexpensive and Mission Furniture/Arts & Crafts
beautifully decorated with stencils filled in with oil paint or inexpen-
sive metallic powder. Men made the chairs, children painted them, And to think this design movement started with a chair.
and women applied the stencils.” Hitchcock went bankrupt more In around 1894, AJ Forbes made a solid wood chair
than once and had more liabilities than assets at his death in 1852. for San Francisco’s Swedenborgian Church. It was
In the 1940s, John Tarrant Kenney started the Hitchcock Chair anything but Victorian. This handcrafted chair fea-
Company in Riverton, CT, and made Hitchcock chairs until 2006. tured a simple, straight-line construction with a
Recently, antique dealers Rick Swenson and Gary Hath from New comfortable seat and was built
Hartford, CT, invested and are once again bringing back these age- to last. Joseph P. McHugh was
less traditional chairs. a furniture maker and retailer in
New York who knew a good
thing when he saw it – and
American Furniture in the Victorian Era copied it. McHugh called the
It is no surprise that American furniture of the Victorian era was style “Mission” to reference the
obviously heavily influenced by the phenomenon of Queen Victoria many Spanish missions in
and her influence over the style of almost everything in her king- California, although it had little
dom. The furniture was ornate, with craftsmen and women striving to do with them.
to achieve perfection in design, manufacturing, and in upgrading the In 1901, Mission furniture
world of upholstery to include needlepoint, silks, velvet, and the use made an impact at the Pan- Gustav Stickley "Model #367" Spindle Morris
of tufting and draping. American Exposition in Chair, Eastwood, New York, 1904-1912,
Status in England weighed heavy on the minds of those in the upper Buffalo, New York, as peo- quartersawn oak, with corbel supports under each
tiers of social status. The more ornate, the better. Mahogany was the ple were looking to simplify arm, thru-tenon construction, replaced sling seat
order of the day, with walnut their furniture choices after with recovered leather seat and back cushion, origi-
being used for smaller pieces. the heavily-manufactured nal finish, marked with red decal sold for $2,635
For other wood, fancy Victorian movement during at a 2020 Skinner auction.
Flame Mahogany veneers the Industrial Revolution. A return to hand-craftsmanship was in
were applied to other order. Gustav Stickley (1858-1842) referred to the style as “Arts and
Crafts” after noting the “Mission” name was misleading. While the
Pair of companion Arts & Crafts era was started in England, Stickley, along with others
American Victorian including Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936), and Arthur J. Stone (1847-
parlor chairs. American, 1938), an immigrant from England, focused on man-made items,
late 19th century, walnut. not machine-made.
His and her companion Characteristics of Arts & Crafts chairs and furniture include:
parlor chairs with well- • Handcrafted from oak or quarter-sawn white oak.
formed crest above oval • Simple, straight-line construction.
tufted brocade back and • Often features a medium or dark stain.
seat terminating on • Heavy and substantial, but well proportioned.
cabriole legs and casters,
sold for $250 in • Absence of ornamentation.
April, 2021. • Functional and durable.
photo: selkirkauctions.com • Emphasis on simple horizontal and vertical lines, and flat panels
accentuate the grain of the wood.
24 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles Continued on page 30