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Andrew McCredie Layne Christensen

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assical

Edith .
: Saat ‘kamp

THE PRICE of a well-.
designed chair can knock you
off your feet.. — -

“ An ergonomically designed desk
: chair can cost up to two thousand
": dollars. A designer chair, such as Le
"Corbusier's cube chair or Mies van

der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — both

*_ from the 1920s — can cost just as

"much. A reproduction of a Queen.
Amne wing chaiz or a Hepplewhite.
dining chair would be more expen-
sive. A ‘pedigree’ antique chair

». could be priceless, as precious and

rare as it was three or four hundred
years ago ia the home of a ‘coi
moner’.

It was a privilege to own a chair,
reserved for heads of staic or church,
aristocrats and rich merchants. In the
17th and i8th century the ‘master of
the house’ and honored guests bad
chairs. ‘Ordinary folk” sut on stools
or benches, or the ficor.

. Even today’s lunguage preserves
a memory of the chairman's privi-
leged role. And many sets uf dining
chairs still include one with a larger
seat and uri rests, usually reserved
for the head of the household. A
‘chaired position’ is coveted by all
university professors.

The term is used symbolicaily.
but in earlier times the chair was
quite literally a seat given io a great

‘ieacher. The werd cathedral derives

from the Latin word for chair; a
church is only a cathedral when it

-. contains a bishop's chair.

It seems appropriate to end this . -

~ series with the era's great chairs, and
_ their best-known designers, Thomas
’ Chippendale, George Hepplewhite

and Thomas Sheraton.
Their work seems to epitomize
the high standards reached by: the

sty

i HOMES GARDEN

18th century furniture industry.
Many peceople will go as far as to say
that furniture‘design has never
achieved the same level of grace and
artistry since then.)

Hepplewhite’s chairs are easy to
identify by the typical shield-shaped

” back. in some models the back was

heart-shaped, round or oval, always
beautifully carved and detailed. The
legs were straight or tapered. Paint
and inlays were used to accentuate
the carved details.

iviy first encounter with
Hepplewhite chairs occurred in a
Vancouver collectible store. 1 spotted
them from the entrance, hidden in a
dark comer; the price was “$150, set
of four’. 1 thought I had made the
find every collector dreams about,
but then I spotted what was left of
the legs — they had been chewed to
bits by an army of enthusiastic pup-
pies. .

Reproductions of these chairs are
still available, however, thanks to
Hepplewhite’s widow who carried
on his business and published the
Cabinet-makers’ and Upholsterer’s
Guide a [ew years aftér his death.

a

ern tvs

apes

Friday, October 13, 1995 — North Shore News ~ 13

-

ROBERT VENTURI’S caricature collection cf
antique chairs (above) appear like two-dimensional
paper cutouts when compared to the real thing. The
chair, notes Edith Saatkamp, has played an integral
part in history. In past centuries the master of the
house and honored guests had chairs. Ordinary
fotk sat on stools or benches, or on the floor.’

painted porcelain plaques, and most
were made of satinwood. Curiously,
Sheraton never seems to have made
a single chair or other piece of furni-
ture. He designed chairs and furni-
ture or adapted the designs of others.
But the execution was left to others.
We would probably call Sheraton ©
a Renaissence man — he was a *

- preacher and self-taught scholar,

wrote religious works and was
known as a mathematician. He made

his often meagre living by teaching
drafting, and designing chairs and”
other furniture.

Society and manufacturing
changed tremendously in the 200
years since. Britain and France set
the tone in elegant living. Nobody
has illustrated this better than the
American architect Robert Venturi
whose antique chairs appear like *
two-dimensional paper cutouts when
compared to the real thing...

Fall Decorating )
d

Sheraton's chairs are prized for
their delicate jine and light frame.
Some models were decorated with

’ THE CLASSIC chair designs of Thomas Sheraton (centre) and
George Hepplewhite (left and right) continue to be reproduced
by contmeporary chalr manufacturers.

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