For those who are interested, many “split” turnings in the 17th and 18th centuries are not complete halves. This is why. They were turned whole, then sawn in half, and the sawn surfaces flattened. They were then inserted as chair back spindles, or glued onto furniture as ornaments. If it looks right…it is right.
Straightforward appropriation of someone else’s design. I left off the lower drawers to create little book cubbies instead. Butternut.
This frame, with stamped edge detail and custom made gilded twists, and the eglomise glass mat, was commissioned for a needlework of the same period.
My reproduction of the ‘fully elastic’ armchair
One of my areas of research is the chair maker, Samuel Gragg. In 1808 he patented a bentwood chair that he called: “Elastic.” Although thanks to the patent office being burned down later in the century, it is a fair assumption that his was the first, and certainly the most deserving piece of patented furniture in the new republic.
An exhibition of this work that I created and curated in 2003 “The Incredible Elastic Chairs of Samuel Gragg” can be found here, thanks to the Chipstone Foundation:
Mike Podmaniczky 